ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 8, 1996 TAG: 9612090069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
IT'S NOT WHO WINS or who loses. It's who has the best time making up fightin' words.
Saturday's Army-Navy football game at Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium was about more than bragging rights and the Commander in Chief's Trophy for the military football champion. It was about more than the 97th meeting between the two teams, this year staged on Pearl Harbor Day. It was about more than winning the series' most talked-about game since 1963, when Roger Staubach quarterbacked Navy to a victory and a berth in the Cotton Bowl.
The game, played before 69,238 rain-soaked fans and about 40 warm but worried alumni and friends gathered at Hidden Valley Country Club in Salem, was about terrycloth.
Jerry Burgess, Army class of 1969, and Chuck Saldarini, Navy '65, made a wager before they arrived at Hidden Valley. To the winner would go a standard-issue terrycloth robe from the loser's school. ``It's the most important thing you have as a cadet,'' said Burgess, of Blue Ridge.
``Army has a very distinctive one,'' said Saldarini. ``It smells like a donkey.''
Burgess prefers that the West Point mascot be referred to by its proper species name: mule. Saldarini should be one to kid, anyway. Navy's mascot is a goat.
And although Navy lost to Army for the fifth consecutive year (28-24 this time), there were no goats at Hidden Valley, just sworn friends.
``Everybody thinks Army and Navy hate each other,'' Burgess said. ``Only one day a year.''
Nobody knows more about the rivalry than Dick Raymond, Navy class of '54 and a resident of Southwest Roanoke. Seven generations of Raymond's family attended West Point. His father was on his way until it was discovered he had a heart murmur. ``The disappointment of his life,'' Raymond said.
Raymond himself planned to attend West Point until a physical examination revealed he had flat feet. So he went to Annapolis instead.
Sitting next to Raymond were Walter and Sallie Dixon. Walter is a 1940 Navy graduate who was with his wife in Annapolis on Dec.7, 1941. They left the campus for lunch, and by the time they returned to the entrance gates, the guards had their pistols drawn and told the Dixons, ``We're at war.'' Walter and Sallie Dixon listened to a radio as ships filled with their friends - the USS Oklahoma, the Arizona, the Kansas - were attacked.
Most of the memories shared on this 55th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack were much happier. Most were about football.
Burgess recalled with pride presenting the colors at the 1968 game in Philadelphia's John F. Kennedy Stadium. Raymond loves to talk about the 1950 game, in which Navy beat a No.2-ranked Army team 14-2. ``It was one of the sweetest victories I've ever seen,'' he said.
Defeats also stay with these alumni. Army lost the only time Burgess bet his bathrobe as a cadet. The 1968 Army team played its way into the Sugar Bowl, only to be denied its berth because of commitments to the war in Vietnam. In response to that decision, the West Point cadets stole every sugar bowl in the campus mess hall.
Pranks have marked the Army-Navy series. Earlier this week, Navy had a bonfire in which a piece of the goalpost from Army's 24-23 victory in 1971 was burned. A group of midshipmen had stolen it from West Point this fall.
Michael Gates, a Lord Botetourt High School graduate who is a plebe at Army, e-mailed Burgess and told him West Point responded accordingly. Cadets painted a Dodge pickup truck in Navy colors, then called on Army's linebackers to take a sledgehammer to it. A 60-ton M1A2 tank finished the job by squashing the truck into the pavement.
Keith Raines, a 1986 Army grad who created the West Point Society of Southwest Virginia, once strung a banner between the chimneys of the superintendent's house that read ``Go Army, Beat Navy.'' The superintendent wrote him up and added this statement: ``Great motivation, poor judgment.''
The schools' administrators showed questionable judgment 50 years ago, albeit in the midst of World War II. In 1942 and 1943, the games were moved to campus sites, and only the home team was allowed to attend. Randy Heard of Roanoke, Army class of '45, was a cadet then.
``Someone high-placed decided to divide the corps in two,'' Heard said. ``Half could root for Army, and half had to root for Navy. We wore white hats and learned all the cheers. I never did think that was a good idea.
``And to make matters worse, Army lost that game, too.''
John Childress, another guest at the gathering, never has been to an Army-Navy game, but that will change soon. And when the time comes, he knows he'll be rooting for Army.
Childress, a Roanoke Valley Christian School senior, was the first person in the United States accepted to West Point for matriculation next fall. Thanks to the efforts of Raines and others in the West Point Society, U.S. Sen. John Warner pushed Childress' appointment through.
There was a reason for the urgency. Childress' father, John, was suffering from bone cancer, and always wanted to see his son go to West Point. Childress received his acceptance in early October. His father died Oct.30.
``It was awesome that he got to see it,'' Childress said. ``He was glad.''
More than a month after losing his father and friend, Childress made 40 new ones Saturday. Most were Army graduates, some were Navy graduates. There is a natural bond and respect between the Army and Navy camps that cannot be tainted by wins and losses on the football field.
After exchanging embraces with his rivals, Saldarini said, ``I can't think of a better team to lose to.''
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY\Staff. 1. Chuck Saldarini, a 1965 graduate ofby CNBthe Naval Academy, expresses his displeasure with Navy near the end
of its game against Army on Saturday. 2. Keith Raines (left) and
Dave Crenshaw, graduates of West Point, cheer as Army scores another
touchdown. color.