Once Campbell had escorted them back to the northwest gate, they walked to the Post. They were told to “just write” and not worry about length, and that’s what they did-producing two thousand words in under two hours.
“He really is good,” Kelleher said, reading behind them. “He knows exactly what people need and he gives it to them-nothing more, nothing less.”
Once their story had been edited and approved, Kelleher took Stevie to the train station. He was dreading the next few days: he’d be back in school, which was a pretty big comedown from interviewing the president. But soon he’d be at the game itself. Just not soon enough.
Susan Carol was happy with the story she and Stevie had produced from their interview with President Obama. And she liked having people stop her in the newsroom to tell her how much they had enjoyed her story on the Arnott brothers in that morning’s paper. Tamara called it “taking bows.”
“No better feeling,” she said. “It’s great to write something your colleagues notice.”
“Well, it sure beats hate mail.” Susan Carol laughed.
She also felt better after a weekend working together with Stevie. Even tough things seemed better when they could tackle them together.
So she really missed Stevie when Kelleher called her on Tuesday.
“I just got a call from Kenny Niumatalolo,” he said. “He told me the ACC stuck to its guns on the refs, so your favorite officials from the Notre Dame game will be on the Army-Navy game. He’s really angry about it.”
“Are you going to write about it?” she asked.
“No. You are. You were the one who started this story.”
Susan Carol was quiet, so Kelleher plowed ahead. “Don’t be nervous. You just make some phone calls. I’ll give you Kenny’s cell. I think he’ll talk pretty frankly even on the record because he is not happy. Then call the ACC for comment, and Rich Ellerson too. You’ve got his number, right?”
“What about the referee; do I call him too?” she asked.
“Ask Harold Neve-he’s the ACC’s football supervisor-if he’s got numbers for any of the four guys. They all have jobs, so they’re probably reachable at their offices.”
“They have jobs?”
“Sure. They only ref one day a week, travel one day maybe, and football season is only so long. So the rest of the time they have jobs. That’s part of the problem, really. They’re not full-time professionals and no one ever wants to fire them when they screw up.”
Susan Carol wasn’t terribly excited about doing the story, but she knew it needed to be done.
Niumatalolo was calm but clearly upset when she talked to him.
“I have yet to see any evidence that those two calls were warranted,” he said. “I really don’t think it’s fair to our kids to run onto the field for our biggest game of the year and have to see four of those same officials out there. I’m not saying they’re incompetent, I’m just saying the wound they inflicted is still raw.”
Ellerson was sympathetic with Niumatalolo. “If I was in Ken’s shoes, I’d probably feel the same way,” he said. “My only concern now is that the officials might not want to makes calls against Navy. Honestly, I’d rather not see them on the game either.”
Not surprisingly, the ACC football supervisor, Harold Neve, wasn’t at all pleased when Susan Carol read him the coaches’ comments. “Mike Daniels has been officiating for twenty-two years. He’s been a referee for fourteen. All the men involved are very experienced and have excellent records. They’re looking forward to this game-being a part of it is special for the officials too.
“It’s not unusual for a coach to be upset about a couple of calls. But we don’t change assignments because of it.”
“Did you look at the game tape?” Susan Carol asked.
“Of course I did,” Neve said.
“And?”
“And I don’t comment on specific plays except to explain a rule. These were judgment calls. I don’t talk about judgment calls. But if I thought any official in any game had badly blown a call, you can be sure he would hear about it from me.”
“Did the officials in the Navy-Notre Dame game hear from you?”
Neve didn’t answer the question. “You know, young lady, a lot of this happened because of the inflammatory story you wrote. So I really don’t appreciate your attitude.”
Now Susan Carol was angry. “I think I gave people a pretty clear picture of what happened.”
“You focused on two calls. How many other calls made up that game? How many plays went off with no call necessary?”
“But those two calls both came at key moments-” Susan Carol cut herself off. She realized she was arguing, not interviewing, a cardinal sin for a reporter. Before Neve could respond, she said, “Look, Mr. Neve, thanks for your help. Do you have phone numbers where I might reach the four officials?”
There was silence on the other end for a moment.
“Our policy is to only allow referees to speak to the media, and only if they choose to do so,” he said. “The referee is the spokesman. I’ll give you Mike Daniels’s number if you want it, but I doubt he’ll want to talk to you.”
“I know that,” she said. “But I think I should give him a chance to comment.”
“Fine, then.”
He gave her the number. Hanging up the phone, Susan Carol felt a wave of resolve come over her. So without hesitating, she called the number he had given her.
“G. A. Storage Company, may I help you?” a voice said.
“I was trying to reach Mike Daniels.”
There was clearly no call-screening at G. A. Storage Company because she was put right through. On the second ring someone picked up and said, “Mike Daniels.”
For a split second, Susan Carol froze. Then she found her voice.
“Mr. Daniels, this is Susan Carol Anderson from the Washington Post.”
Silence.
“Mr. Daniels?”
“What can you possibly want?”
“I’m writing a story about the fact that Coach Ken Niumatalolo asked that you and your crew mates be removed from the Army-Navy game.” She was talking fast, hoping he wouldn’t hang up on her. “I talked to Mr. Neve, and he gave me your number.”
“He did?”
“He said you were the spokesman for the crew. And that it would be up to you to comment.”
“Okay, here’s my comment: the fact that we’re still assigned to the game is proof of the job we’ve done this year. If Coach Niumatalolo has a problem with that, it’s his problem. Not ours.”
“But don’t you think-”
She stopped. The phone had gone dead. Which, in truth, was fine with her. If Daniels hadn’t been hostile, she would have been surprised-and maybe even a little disappointed. She turned to the computer and started to write.
On Wednesday, Susan Carol and Tamara were back at Navy for practice.
“Tomorrow is our last real practice before Saturday,” Coach Niumatalolo said as the players gathered around at the end of their workout. It was six o’clock, pitch dark, and cold. No one seemed to notice. “We’re going to have to go straight from practice to the pep rally on T-Court and we’ll be pressed for time, so I’d like the captains to talk to you right now.”
“What’s T-Court?” Susan Carol whispered to Tamara as Ricky Dobbs stood up in front of his teammates.
“Tecumseh Court,” she answered. “There’s a statue of the Indian Tecumseh on a green. Everyone calls it T-Court.”
Dobbs spoke softly. “We seniors have talked about the fact that this is our last Army-Navy game,” he said. “So I want to talk to you underclassmen. Your time is going to come for this. You’re going to remember your last practice on this field, your last time dressing in the locker room, the last time you run on the field to play against Army, the last time you stand for the alma maters after we get through kicking their butts.”
That got a little cheer from everyone.
“Seriously, though, I know from talking to guys who were here long before us that no matter what the outcome on Saturday, this is the game we’ll remember most. It’s great we’ve whipped Air Force every year. But we all know the first thing we’re going to talk about at our reunions is playing Army. The first thing any of us will be asked when we report for active duty will be, ‘What was your record against Army?’ The last five senior classes all got to say, four and oh. I want to be able to say the same, and so do all of you.”
He sat down to raucous applause.
Defensive back Wyatt Middleton, the defensive captain, was next. He repeated a lot of the things Dobbs had said, but he finished on a different note. “I read a quote about this game from an Army coach named Bob Sutton,” he said. “Bob Sutton beat us six out of nine when he was the coach. He said he always told his team, ‘Think about how much you want to win this game. Think about what it will mean to you the rest of your life. Then think about this: the Navy guys feel exactly the same way.’ ”
Middleton paused. “He also said this: ‘The most desperate team wins the Army-Navy game.’ So think. We’ve beaten these guys eight years in a row. Can you imagine how desperate they are? We know they’re good this year. And I know that we are better. But we also have to find a way to be more desperate on Saturday. That’s what’s going to make the difference.”
When he finished, the entire team stood and formed a circle around the captains. “On three,” Middleton said. “One, two, three… BE DESPERATE!”
Then the team fell into handshakes and embraces with the two captains.
“Wow,” Susan Carol said.
“You said it,” Tamara said.
Two hundred miles north, Stevie was at West Point for one of Army’s last practices. It was the last day of full hitting. Thursday would be devoted to making sure they knew Navy’s schemes and to special teams. By 6:30 the sun was down and it was getting very cold, and Rich Ellerson blew his whistle and called everyone to the middle of the field.
“Get ready for this,” Tim Kelly leaned in and said quietly to Stevie.
Stevie was prepared for a speech.
“There are twenty-four first classmen on this football team,” Ellerson said. “To say that every one of them is a special person sounds like a cliché, but we all know what it takes to play four years of football here. I wasn’t here for their first year, but I’m told that at the first practice that August, one hundred and eight plebes reported to play football. These are the guys who stuck it out.”
One by one he called each senior to stand next to him. As each player came up, Ellerson talked about him-told a funny story, talked about a big play he had made, quoted something one of his teammates had said about him. There were lots of laughs, a few tears, and a lot of applause for each player. Ellerson didn’t call the players up in order of importance or based on whether they were starters; he brought them up alphabetically.
The last senior was Jim Zopelis, a special teams player. Stevie knew Zopelis was famous for his imitations, and the one he enjoyed doing most was of Doug Pavek, one of the officer reps who had been a cornerback twenty-five years earlier at Army. Pavek liked to give pep talks to the team, and apparently he always began them by saying, “Guys, I played in TWO bowl games while I was a player at Army… TWO bowl games.”
Ellerson asked Zopelis to do Pavek for everyone one more time.
“Coach, so far I’ve played in NO bowl games,” Zopelis riffed. “None, zero, not one. But by God, I’m going to win ONE game against Navy before I go. ONE GAME!”
The whole team roared their approval.
Ellerson said, “Okay, guys, let’s line up.”
Then everyone except for Stevie and Dean Taylor, the former team doctor (who was visiting for the week but technically a visitor too), and the twenty-four seniors walked to the far end zone, where the players entered the field for games. They formed a cordon-players, coaches, trainers, doctors, everyone. Once they were lined up, the first classmen, one by one, made their way along the cordon. There were handshakes and hugs for each as they passed through their teammates. When the last of them-Zopelis-had shaken the last hand-Ellerson’s-the coach and everyone else simply turned to the seniors and applauded.
Stevie’s story poured out:
There are many traditions that make up the Army-Navy experience. Most will be carried out on Saturday in front of more than 90,000 witnesses inside FedEx Field. But Wednesday night, under an almost-full moon, one of football’s most emotional traditions took place inside an empty Michie Stadium while a cold wind whistled in off the Hudson.
After each of Army’s 24 seniors, surrounded by their teammates, had been called up by Coach Rich Ellerson for a final salute to their careers, the coaches and staff members and underclassmen formed a cordon leading from the field to the locker room.
Slowly, clearly savoring every moment, every handshake, every hug, the 24 seniors walked through the cordon to say goodbye-not just to their coaches and teammates, but also to the long practice days inside this old stadium filled with memories and banners honoring past national champions and Heisman Trophy winners.
And after the last senior had hugged Ellerson, the man standing at the end of the cordon, the first classmen stood before their team and received a heartfelt round of applause that echoed off the stadium’s empty seats.
It was a moment of bonding and camaraderie and, yes, love. All 24 seniors have loved playing football for Army. And everyone inside Michie Stadium this evening loved being part of their achievement.
Stevie leaned back in his chair. He wondered if what he had written was too corny. But Kelleher had once told him that nothing was too corny if it was true. So he pressed send and filed the story.