Catching up

The Army Navy edition. We’ve spent the day traveling back home, and so here is as good a place as any to post a few pictures from our big day at the game.

First, here’s a panorama of the field during the march on by the cadets of West Point. Click to embiggen:

Cadets

Teaching them young with the lightweight .50-caliber machine gun:

kids

Marine One comes in for a landing with the president and vice president:

copter

The traditional “exchanging of prisoners” in the pre-game. The cadets and midshipmen had spent the semester with their opposite academy as exchange students.

exchange

Navy’s Kriss Proctor, a prototypical option quarterback, scores the first of his two touchdowns of the day to give Navy their first lead. Proctor’s mother didn’t want him to go to the Naval Academy at first. Her father had spent 18 months as a German POW during World War II. He talked her into it, sat for a few years behind one of the best quarterbacks in modern Navy history and here is now:

Proctor

Army quarterback TRENT STEELMAN (the Internet requires his name to be spelled this way options to Raymond Maples.

Maples is the first member of his family to go to college. His bio says he’s the first person from his high school to attend West Point.

Steelman’s dad lettered in football at Appalachian State University, his mother has run dozens of marathons and his sister lettered in soccer at Wofford College. Jocks. Also, one of his grandfathers served in the Air Force during World War II, he had an uncle in the Army during the first Gulf War. A great uncle was an interpreter at Nurenberg Trials during World War II in Germany. West Point offers incredibly rich bios.

STEELMAN

My favorite player on this Navy team, diving into the end zone. Alexander Teich is a fullback, but he’s smaller than I am. He plays fullback the right way, though, and was a lot of fun to watch run. Football tough, the senior is hoping to join the Navy SEALS after graduation.

Teich

And now a few crowd shots:

Fans

Fans

“Nine dollars for a beer?” asked one happily annoyed fan. “Is there a discount for veterans?”

The vendor could only say “It ain’t me, blame Daniel Synder.”

Daniel Snyder, owner of the Redskins and this park and blamed for most everything else around Washington sports, can take the heat.

Fans

Fans

Malcolm Brown scores for Army, keeping the Cadets in the game:

Brown

And now, more fans:

Fans

Fans

Fans

Fans

Fans

Fans

Fans

Fans

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