There it is: the four italicized words at the end of the email. Go Army. Beat Navy. It’s there like PS- don’t forget to pick the kids up at 3. It’s an afterthought, and it’s everything. It’s implied but too important to be ignored.
I had the pleasure of receiving the email from West Point’s Superintendent. Well it wasn’t to me. Three-star generals don’t email me. But I know people that they email, people in their charge, and when it’s not classified I will occasionally get one forwarded to me. He signed off his email- Go Army. Beat Navy.- like the tens of men that have preceded him as the head of West Point. They have used that sign off for as long as there has been football. Surely if Ulysses Grant and Robert Lee were around for a football game--and, I guess, if they had email--that would have been their sign off too. Surely it was Eisenhower’s signoff. No matter what rank he or she may achieve in life, there is little that is more important to a West Pointer than the Saturday in December when they play Navy. The week before the game is unlike anything in college sports. Cadets greet their superiors with “Go Army! Beat Navy!” It’s a salutation and a salute. It’s implied--but too important to be ignored.
There are college rivalries that teams look forward to all season, the rivalries that make or break seasons, and then there is Army/Navy. Once it was a championship-caliber game, but now in the lean years--because of the lean years--the game is even more important. The Oregon/Oregon State rivalry has long had the audacity to call their game the Civil War; I wonder what Grant (West Point class of 1843) and Lee (West Point class of 1829) would think of that. If football is a metaphor for war, what do we call it when actual soldiers are playing? And therein lies the rub, it’s a game--a big game--but just a game nonetheless, and with what awaits them after graduation, how can a game compare to that? It’s this dichotomy that turns commentators into rambling idiots. It’s the don’t-think-of-an-elephant problem, you try to block it out of your mind, but that just makes it pop in there that much larger. The game is so big why would you talk about anything else, but the desire to focus on the field makes every cadet’s future weigh even heavier on your mind. Their future is what separates this game from Harvard/Yale, their future is what makes this game so big. It’s implied, but too important to be ignored.
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