The likely suspects? West Point cadets spending a semester in Annapolis, Maryland, as exchange students. It’s a program that will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year — one of several enduring traditions between the two academies.
“I can neither confirm nor deny if that was us that evening,” Army senior cadet Jayram Suryanarayan said, “but I can say we were up to some shenanigans — so it could have been.”
“We’re all in the Department of War,” Middleton said. “We all work for each other. If we’re in some far-flung place, having to do a job the nation has called us to do, I don’t care where you graduated because we’re all out there for each other.”
The players earn the spotlight in the final and most emotional tradition — singing their alma maters on the field after the game. And woe to the team that lost and has to sing first.
“You just feel like you not only let yourself down, your teammates down,” Army center Brady Small said, “but you feel like you let the Army down.”
While you might be familiar with some or all of these traditions from watching the game on TV, ESPN interviewed more than a dozen people from both academies who make it all come together, taking you behind the scenes for how each tradition unfolds and what it means to be a part of them.
In preseason camp, every Army football player is tested on the school’s alma mater. It’s something they learn from the “Book of Knowledge,” which is required reading during Cadet Basic Training and has been published since 1908. It includes the history and traditions of West Point.
“I can’t tell you the exact page number,” said receiver Noah Short of where the alma mater appears, “but it’s definitely in the first few pages.”
Hail, Alma Mater dear, To us be ever near. Help us thy motto bear Through all the years. Let Duty be well performed. Honor be e’er untarned Country be ever armed. West Point, by thee.
“If you don’t do it right — literally word for word — Coach Monken will not travel you,” Army linebacker Kalib Fortner said.
“It’s awesome,” Monken said, “and there’s just so much emotion and relief that we’re the ones standing there singing second. … It’s equally as gut-wrenching and emotionally just rips you apart to have to stand there and mumble the words of your alma mater if you’ve gotta do it first.”
“We don’t really keep files stored here, we just kind of keep things very hush-hush,” said Mike Resnick, associate athletic director in charge of internal operations at West Point. “Nike’s really good on the shipping. It’s West Point; we have some trustworthy people here.”
Army’s marble print uniforms are designed to mirror the marble headstones at Arlington National Cemetery and the ultimate sacrifice that has been made. The Great Seal on the right shoulder indicates Army’s duty to the United States in peace and war. There is an old guard espontoon etched into each helmet to symbolize Army’s role as the tip of the spear, starting on the back of the helmet and culminating in a tip on the front.
Lieutenant Colonel John Zdeb teaches in the department of History and War Studies at West Point and has been helping with the accuracy of the football team’s uniforms for five years. He’s a graduate of the academy and also had two deployments to Iraq, one to Afghanistan, another to Eastern Europe and another to Kuwait.
At 3:30 a.m. Thursday morning, a group of 17 cadet marathoners, four officers and three vans departed from the West Point superintendent’s house on campus to run 240 miles across four different states — all while carrying an Army game ball to be delivered to M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore at 2 p.m. ET on Friday. On Saturday, each of the teams will jog the ball onto the field at a designated time and present it to their First Captain or Brigade Commander.
At approximately 7 a.m., on Thursday the team will pass from New York into Mahwah, New Jersey, and then continue along Route 202 into Pennsylvania. The marathon team will then run through southeastern Pennsylvania before entering Maryland, near Rising Sun. The final portion of their journey will lead them to downtown Baltimore via Route 1.
“It’s kind of fun because we have the rest of the company there waiting at the stadium for the ball to get there, and then the people that are running that last leg kind of run up to the stadium,” Midshipman Connor Mollberg said. “The whole company’s there. It’s a big celebration that we got the ball there.”
“It never intentionally hits the ground,” Clay said, “especially in those subfreezing temperatures with gloves on, it can be really hard to tell how firm of a grip you have on the ball. So yes, it has been dropped, but never intentionally — and never more than 13th company.”
While Army’s relay team is much smaller because it comprises the school’s marathon team, they tend to pass the ball around with anyone who joins them for the last few miles — typically members of the community, first responders and high-ranking West Point officers.
“We use it as a demonstration of discipline within the corps, everybody moving in the same uniform, at the same time, in the same place,” said Adam Brady, who has done this as a cadet and now as the Operations Officer at Army. “It’s one of the few times when we have the entire corps of cadets marching.”
At Army, it’s the same 30-inch step. It’s the same arm movements for thousands of students who must keep in line with the person to the right. They guide right (keep the group moving in a straight line), dress right (fine tune everyone’s position so the formation looks perfectly straight), and are centered on the person in front of them. It’s something they practice for a total of four or five hours on one of the campus athletic fields.
“Typically over the plebe summer we’re taught with a cadence, so our detailers will be saying out loud, ‘left, right, left, right,'” Alexander said. “And we’ll have little ditties or songs that we’ll sing along to get our brains trained to walk in-step, so we’ve gotten pretty good at that.”
“They like to be together,” said Brown, who worked on a sheep farm during high school in Georgia. “They’re a lot more calm when they’re around each other.”
The mules eat hay and the mule wranglers will bring four bales for Paladin to travel with as well as a hay net filled for him to eat on the field.
Chesty, an English bulldog who is the mascot of the United States Marine Corps, could make a surprise appearance during the coin toss.
Throughout his career, Reynolds has credentialed Elon Musk, Phil Knight, Gary Sinise, Rachel Ray, Charles Barkley, Mark Wahlberg, Peyton and Eli Manning. There’s one person, though, at the top of his list — Army superintendent Lieutenant General Steven W. Gilland, “who for me, outranks everybody else. I work directly for him. I got to make sure he’s taken care of.”
“The challenging part is to try to make sure the fan experience is still great,” Reynolds said. “We want everybody coming to the stadium to have a great time, to enjoy America’s Game.
“But the logistics,” he said. “The White House staff determines the itinerary of the President. The Secret Service’s job is to make sure that itinerary is secure for the President — and everybody — but really they’re focused on the President. My job is to meld all that into the fan experience and the team, so they can still take the field at the right time, do whatever the coaches need them to do.”
While most of the dignitaries start to arrive between 11 a.m. and noon, the President typically comes just before kickoff for security reasons.
Senior Myles Brown leads the Goat Squad and has been a member since his sophomore year. He said the two goats — both named Bill — will arrive at the Stadium around 10 a.m. and be available in the parking lot to visit with fans. The Goat Squad will enter the stadium between noon and 12:30 p.m., and they’ll look for a spot on the field secluded from the football players “so they’re not overstimulated.” After Bill 37 retired, Bill 38 took his place — and Bill 39 is the new addition (for anyone who might be counting).
Proud to honor an enduring symbol of service and sacrifice for the past 250 years.https://t.co/QlUpMO7VlC#GoArmy pic.twitter.com/5DeHAW0pm9
Jump to section: Alma mater | Uniforms Ball run | March On Mascots | Presidential visit
“I make them write it down,” Army coach Jeff Monken said, “they have to write it out.”
“We don’t let the Pentagon know,” Resnick said. “We keep it pretty close to the vest.”
“Nobody’s posting anything regarding the unis, everybody good?” Newberry said.
Though not without someone occasionally fumbling along the way.
“They let us know who they’re rooting for pretty early on,” Clay said. “Certainly a healthy mix.”
It might be the only game on the planet where two goats and a mule get together before kickoff.
This year, one other live mascot might try to steal their spotlight.
Jeff Reynolds, Chief of Protocol, United States Military Academy, West Point, said he was expecting close to 800 celebrities and dignitaries in Baltimore, and is in charge of credentialing more than 600 seats on Army’s 50-yard line — extending from the first row up to the first few rows on the upper deck.