Millions will watch, not knowing why. It’s a game that doesn’t matter, but it’s a game that matters very much. Army/Navy. One of the proud traditions in all of American sport, this annual college football game between the United States Military Academy and United States Naval Academy is best described in these words from Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posanski:
Army-Navy football feels as if it was preserved in a snow globe many years ago. All that's missing for the game in Philadelphia this year is the snow. Everything is blue and gray, even the sky. Older men wear fedoras and homburgs, young couples hold hands, and the gates overflow with happy people in somber overcoats. Someone shouts, "Get your program here!" The sports world, the real world, changes so rapidly, but not Army-Navy. Here it is perpetually 1948, and America is strong. The Midshipmen march into the stadium in perfect rhythm, and the Cadets march in perfect rhythm, and tomorrow looks bright.
Why does Army-Navy still matter? Neither team has been a national championship contender in two generations. Many years, neither team is even a bowl contender. The schools stubbornly cling to the worn-out triple-option offense years after even the most stubborn warhorses, such as Nebraska and Alabama, gave it up. In today's world of wildcats and spreads and pistols, Army-Navy can look more like a reenactment than a football game.
“Preserved in a snow globe” is the perfect way to describe what will be on display for a national television audience on CBS. Few, if any, NFL scouts will be in attendance to watch a football game that features two teams running a variation of the option/triple-option/Wing-T attack (it gives them a competitive advantage against their competition, because few teams run these offenses anymore, the student-athletes at both schools have height and weight restrictions that disqualify huge lineman from being recruited, and it’s hard to prepare to defend).
But Posanski should just come out and say why he thinks the Army/Navy looks more like a “reenactment” than a real, legitimate football game. Both teams have majority white starters and their rosters are full of white players that few other colleges dared recruit.
It was in 2007 that Louisiana State University (LSU) won a national championship thanks to the fleet running of bruising white tailback Jacob Hester. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is made up of teams that have rosters that are Blacker than even the NFL – though the schools are all majority white – which prompted one Black player to ask Hester why he was even in the league: Still, there have been other instances in which Hester has removed his helmet without meaning to pull a fast one—like when he's trying to towel off the part of him that is most an anachronism: his white face. The fact is, in today's game, it's rare to see a white running back playing the role of dominant rusher on a college football team, let alone a national champion. And Hester hears about it. In 2006, after shedding his headgear during a first-quarter timeout against Tennessee, Vols linebacker Jerod Mayo reacted as if he had seen a ghost. Said Mayo to Hester, "Shouldn't you be playing running back for Air Force?' "
Like Army and Navy, Air Force is a team that is consistently starts the most whites of any Football Bowl Series (FBS) institution, primarily because of academic requirements required for admission into these prestigious institutions (consult Castefootball.us for a breakdown of racial starters). The SEC will work to admit any Black athlete that Rivals.com or Scout.com gives four or five stars too, regardless of their moral failings; Army, Navy, and Air Force have to maintain rigid academic and moral standards (as each graduate will become a commissioned officer upon graduation), and can’t recruit marginal Black high school students who lack the aptitude to gain admission or perform the course work once enrolled.
Chad Hall, a former Air Force white running back, plays on the
Philadelphia Eagles. Former
Navy running back Eric Kettani was on the New England Patriots practice squad, but was recently called up to active duty.
There are plenty of talented white players who don't get recruited because of the conditioned belief that only Black athletes can perform at the tailback, receiver, or defensive back. Tom Lemming, perhaps the top recruiting guru, told Michael Lewis this in The Blind Side; he told The Chicago Sun Times as well; and The South Bend Tribune. Funny that a Black player from Tennessee would immediately tell Hester he should play for the Academy (the prior year, Tennessee had barely beaten an almost all-white starting Air Force team).
Back in 1968, John Underwood wrote these words in Sports Illustrated that still ring true today and are another reason why each school is overwhelmingly white: Principal among these are things academy coaches groan over but cannot possibly get around: 1) the postgraduate military commitment is up to five years; to an 18-year-old considering college, four plus five equals half a lifetime; 2) formal declaration or no, the U.S. is at war; 3) since Joe Namath got $400,000 to sign with the New York Jets, every high school quarterback with half a pound of talent dreams of getting his share. When Blaik had Army vying for national championships, the service commitment was just going up from three years to four, the chances were a West Pointer would not find himself being shot at immediately after graduation and Joe Namath was a poor kid in Pennsylvania.
There are other drawbacks. Recruiting is tough because academy entrance requirements are as high as the Ivy League's. There are no crip courses. The daily schedule is harsh, intense—especially in the first year—and the strict regimentation discourages many.
It is a well-known fact that less than 50 percent of Black people score higher than a 700 on their SAT, which severely impacts the pool of qualified candidates for an appointment to either Army or Navy, let alone qualified Black football players that can be recruited. Other schools like Notre Dame have had a hard time recruiting Black athletes that other schools can because of the goal of maintaining academic standards.
You can’t be a top-flight university and field a team comprised largely of marginal Black students who required “Special Admission” to gain entry to the school and are placed in remedial courses for the duration of their stay.
In John Feinstein’s book on the Army/Navy game Civil War: Army vs. Navy, we learn on page 48 that both schools have a trick in trying to increase minority enrollment and in recruiting Black marginal students to be eligible to play football:
All three academies also have prep schools. They exist primarily for students who have an interest in the academy but are not considered ready academically to enroll after their senior year of high school. The prep schools are used, most of the time, for two groups of students: minorities who need to improve their board scores and take or retake core courses, and athletes who need similar academic help. This allows the academy coaching staffs to recruit players who fall below the average SAT score for the rest of the student body, which is about 1200 at both Army and Navy.
The Annapolis Capital newspaper on Sunday published a significant investigative piece on admissions at the U.S. Naval Academy, adding new voices and fresh statistics to the ongoing debate over whether the service academy routinely lowers its exacting entry standards for minority applicants and athletes. A large group of critics, unofficially led by English Professor Bruce Fleming, contend the academy operates a two-tiered admission system. Here's how I described it in a 2009 story: To win the admissions board's approval, Fleming said (describing his own experience on that board), a white applicant had to present SAT section scores higher than 600 (out of 800); a transcript of A's and B's; and a strong background of leadership in sports and student life, reflected in a fivefour-digit score called the whole-person multiplier multiple.
Black and Hispanic students were routinely admitted with SAT scores in the 500s; with B's and C's; and lower whole-person multipliers, Fleming said in the 2009 account. The same lower standards apply to athletes.
Academy spokesman Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said in response that "since 2004 there has been no "standard cut-off" or minimum SAT for anyone, including white non-athletes or any other group."
The Capital reviewed academy records and found that the school admits students with SAT section scores as low as 370, although its standard cutoff for white non-athletes is 600.
"The unfairness is absolutely real," a former admission board member told the Capital, one of several the paper quoted anonymously.
The Capital says the academy uses its Naval Academy Preparatory School, or NAPS, as a back-door admissions pathway for "borderline" students. The prep school is designed as a one-year catch-up program for students with lower test scores and grades or from schools with weak programs, a routine that was common among graduates of rural high schools in earlier generations.
The prep school supplies between one-fifth and one-fourth of each year's entering class at the academy, according to the Capital. Nearly everyone from the prep program gains admission to the academyahead of everyone else.
"During a recent two-year period, NAPS grads were arriving at the Naval Academy so poorly prepared for college-level work, the Naval Academy superintendent relieved the officer in charge of the prep school. Still, these Napsters were found to be fully qualified and were admitted to the academy, while other qualified students were turned away," writer Earl Kelly reports.
The 300-student NAPS class of 2011 included 190 minority students and 110 recruited athletes, according to records obtained by the Capital.
More stats: "For the Naval Academy Classes of 2009-2013, 312 African Americans entered the Naval Academy, 180 (58 percent) of whom came through NAPS, according to documents obtained under FOIA."
Among whites, by contrast, "521 of the 4,101 admitted to the academy (13 percent) entered through NAPS," the Capital wrote.
More stats:
"Of the 155 football players listed on Navy's 2010 roster, 86 (55 percent) attended NAPS, according to the school's sports Web page."
Though the game will be between Army and Navy, it should be pointed out that former Air Force football coach Fischer DeBerrry got in hot water back in 2005 by saying that the school needed more Black players to compete with other teams: Air Force Coach Fisher DeBerry, expressing frustration Tuesday with the Falcons' slumping performance, attributed their latest loss in part to No. 20 Texas Christian's having more African American players who "can run very, very well."
DeBerry, in his 22nd year at the Air Force Academy, first mentioned the academy's lack of minority players compared with other schools while talking to reporters Monday.
He said Air Force needed to recruit faster players. "We were looking at things, like you don't see many minority athletes in our program," DeBerry told the Colorado Springs Gazette.
When questioned about the remarks during his weekly luncheon Tuesday, the coach didn't hesitate to elaborate.
"It just seems to be that way, that Afro-American kids can run very, very well. That doesn't mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can't run, but it's very obvious to me they run extremely well," DeBerry said in remarks first broadcast Tuesday night by KWGN-TV in Denver.
Few Black high school students – current
Black starting quarterback Tim Jefferson has battled academic issues his entire tenure - have the intelligence to make it at the Air Force Academy (or Navy, unless standards are lowered), and, worse, the Air Force Academy has consistently fielded teams that, in spite of their whiteness, win games. Over the past 20 years, the Air Force has been the best service academy
winning big games over schools that start majority Black teams.
 |
| Army and Navy are too white for 21st Century America |
All without that prerequisite Black “speed” that other schools are blessed with, and they get to keep their standards for admission high. Because lowering academic standards has a tendency to let it in students with low moral character. The character of the participants that will be on display in the Army/Navy game will be a welcome departure from the thuggery and “look at me” mindset that is the hallmark of majority Black college football, and many who watch will feel a bit of nostalgia for the America that once existed. All of college football once reflected their majority student population; now, it is one of few instances in American life left for positive examples of young Black males to be cultivated.
But remember, in the pursuit of victory at any costs, schools like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Nebraska, Penn State, and Oklahoma have had to overlook the character flaws of many of these Black athletes. As long as the wins pile up, boosters and alumni can look the other way.
Worse, the stands at FedEx Field outside Washington D.C. in Prince George’s County will be filled with primarily white cadets and midshipman from Army and Navy. Some of these will be seniors, preparing to graduate and garner a commission. The same goes for the football players.
They will be entering a military where “diversity” is the most important aspect of the 21st Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Not only has the Naval Academy lowered standards to get greater minority enrollment, we’ve seen all of this transpire in the bid to make the military fall more in line with the goals of Black-Run America (BRA):
- In the aftermath of the Fort Hood Massacre – when a Muslim in the Army went on a Jihad – the top ranking officer in the Army, Gen. George Casey said this, “Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse,” Casey said.
- Stars and Stripes, the newspaper of the armed services, recently published a cover-story bemoaning the fact that not enough Black people are becoming heroes in the War on Terror.
- Recently, a USNA color guard for the World Series was deemed too white:
Naval Academy leaders removed two midshipmen from a color guard that performed at the World Series last week because they were white men, and replaced them with a non-white man and a white woman so the academy could present a more “diverse” profile, according to several sources, a move that has reportedly angered mids and alumni.
As it turned out, the color guard still ended up all white because the male replacement forgot parts of his uniform.
Two white, male members of the color guard learned Oct. 28 they were being replaced with a white woman, Midshipman 2nd Class Hannah Allaire, and a non-white man, Midshipman 2nd Class Zishan Hameed, on orders of the school’s administration, according to an internal e-mail message provided to Navy Times by an academy professor. With a national television audience, Naval Academy leadership worried the color guard it planned to send wasn’t diverse enough, the e-mail said.
- Racism is the primary reason why there are so few Black Air Force fighter pilots; racism is the primary reason why the various Special Forces groups (like the Navy SEALs) are almost all white;
- Coast Guard Academy standards are too high for Black applicants, so to increase diversity, discrimination against whites must be official sanctioned.
- Too many Black people fail the entry exam given to every recruit; obviously racism is involved.
- The United States Marine Corps has declared itself too white:
Gen. James Amos paid tribute to those pioneering Marines who broke the color barrier in the Corps after training at Montford Point in North Carolina during a speech at the convention of the National Naval Officers Association, an organization that represents minority officers in the sea services.
Amos outlined plans to highlight the legacy of the Montford Point Marines in the history of the tradition-bound Corps, and to improve recruitment and retention of a more diverse pool of Marines. But he introduced his unscripted “from the heart” talk with about 500 officers by saying he was dismayed by the lack of diversity in the Corps, particularly among officers.
“We’re failing,” in this mission, Amos said. “We’re not the face of society.”
About 10 percent of the Corps is African-American, versus about 12 percent of the U.S. population, Amos said. Among the 2010 crop of 1,703 newly minted Marine lieutenants, only 60, or 3.5 percent, were African-American.
- And, Congress commissioned a report in 2009 that found the officers serving in the United States Military were too white:
The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday.
Seventy-seven percent of senior officers in the active-duty military are white, while only 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women, the report by an independent panel said, quoting data from September 2008.
One barrier that keeps women from the highest ranks is their inability to serve in combat units. Promotion and job opportunities have favored those with battlefield leadership credentials.
The report ordered by Congress in 2009 calls for greater diversity in the military’s leadership so it will better reflect the racial, ethnic and gender mix in the armed forces and in American society.
Efforts over the years to develop a more equal opportunity military have increased the number of women and racial and ethnic minorities in the ranks of leadership. But, the report said, “despite undeniable successes ... the armed forces have not yet succeeded in developing a continuing stream of leaders who are as diverse as the nation they serve.”
“This problem will only become more acute as the racial, ethnic and cultural makeup of the United States continues to change,” said the report from the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, whose more than two dozen members included current and former military personnel as well as businessmen and other civilians.
Having military brass that better mirrors the nation can inspire future recruits and help create trust among the general population, the commission said.
This is the America that those college students at Army and Navy are going to defend; an America whose leadership at every level of society (be it government, academic, military, business, etc.) no longer cares about the dwindling majority population and actively promotes policies of discrimination against it.
Too many white males as officers in the military; too many whites in Marines; not enough Black Navy SEALs or Black fighter pilots; General Casey, how again is diversity a strength of the US Military?
“Army-Navy football feels as if it was preserved in a snow globe many years ago,” wrote a Sports Illustrated writer. He was right.
The best and the brightest will be at FedEx Field, men who represent honor, intelligence, and courage, the qualities we should all admire.
It’s too bad that our government is actively trying to lower standards to purge from the officer ranks men of honor, intelligence, and courage, and instead, desire to deliberately sabotage our defenses. We at SBPDL are proud of the brave men and women who still volunteer to defend this nation; judging by the actions of the government which believes a military comprised of primarily white males is not good enough, they are not proud of un-diverse military.
But it’s just a football game. Navy should win, but the loser won’t be Army or Navy; it will be America. The Real America.
Millions will watch, knowing why, but afraid to say it.
Our country deserves better.
