Saturday evening was Annual Christmas Soiree Night at the Smith-Creek household, and so the Blob manned its usual station Saturday afternoon. Which is to say, I was on sweeping/dusting/latrine duty.
But the TV was on, of course. How could it not be?
That's because the day of our annual party is also the day of the Army-Navy football game, and that is appointment viewing for the Blob. It is not the most skilled display of college football, admittedly. But it is the best display of college football, because it embodies everything college football ought to be but no longer is at the very top levels of the game.
The young men of West Point and the Naval Academy, see, do not play for the greater glory of their schools' corporate sponsors. They don't get trotted out there by their schools primarily as billboards for whatever apparel company with whom their schools have chunky deals. And they're not there as quasi-professionals building resumes for the day when they become actual professionals.
Nope. The West Point young men are out there to beat Navy. The Navy young men are out there to beat Army. Both are out there not as future professionals, but as future defenders of America.
Those aforementioned logos, for instance?
The most prominent one on the Army uniforms Saturday did not salute Nike or Adidas or Under Armour. It was a small red patch on the front of their helmets with a "1" on it -- i.e., the insignia of the Big Red One, one of the most celebrated combat units in U.S. military history.
And so there is meaning behind every block, every tackle, every moment of striving in this game, meaning that goes far beyond the mundane considerations of commerce that so infect college football elsewhere. There is meaning behind the pageantry -- the entrance into the stadium of the midshipmen and the corps of cadets; the singing of the alma maters at game's end -- that exists nowhere else. And that is why the Blob watches.
It's also not alone. As John Feinstein professes here.
Could not agree more.
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