Washington — specifically FedEx Field in Landover — gets a chance Saturday to act as the altar for the absolution of college football when it hosts the 112th Army-Navy game. The historic matchup — which began in 1890 — has gone though an evolution, from the days in the early part of the 20th century when the service academy teams were ranked among the best in the nation to today, when the game now has come to symbolize perhaps the only decent thing left in college football.
The Army-Navy game is a monument to honor — and so it is fitting the game is finally taking place in the shadow of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and other symbols of what this nation once stood for and what we desperately grasp to hang on to in a TMZ world.
It is hard to believe that the game has never been played in Washington before. It seems like the nation’s capital should be home for such a symbolic event.
Philadelphia has served as host of the Army-Navy game 83 times over the course of the series. It evolved as the home of the game because the city is the cradle of democracy. Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell represent the birth of a nation. It is also considered a halfway point between West Point and Annapolis.
New York has hosted the game 11 times — nine games at the old Polo Grounds and two at the original Yankee Stadium.
In recent years, Army-Navy has been played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford four times and also in Baltimore four times over the course of the history of the series, most recently at M&T Bank Stadium in 2007.
The game has been played only six times on the campus of the institutions — three times at West Point and three times in Annapolis — with most of those games taking place in the first few years of the series. The last game played at either institution was 1943 at Michie Stadium in West Point, which Navy won 13-0.
There was one game in Princeton, N.J., in 1905. Woodrow Wilson, then the school president at Princeton, lobbied the academies to play the game at his school, which proved to be a debacle. Traffic jams made the two teams late for kickoff, and the game was called with four minutes remaining on account of darkness, ending in a 6-6 tie.
Only twice has the Army-Navy game left the East Coast. In 1926, they appropriately opened Soldier Field in Chicago — a game that ended in a 21-21 tie. In 1983, Navy won 42-13 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, with Napoleon McCallum rushing for 182 yards.
Finally, it has come to Washington — a long overdue host and perhaps the game’s best home.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
