Army Navy Game

Officials from the U.S. naval and army academies today announced that the Army-Navy Game will not be played in Philadelphia next year, marking only the second time in 43 years that the college football classic will be played elsewhere. Although city officials had been negotiating to keep next year's event here, athletic directors from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and the Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., chose Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., for the game, scheduled for Dec. 9, 1989.

The 1993 Army-Navy football game will be played at the New Jersey Meadowlands instead of Veterans Stadium, but the service academies say Philadelphia shouldn't take offense. "We have an option once every four years to go somewhere else, and we just exercised that option for 1993," Naval Academy athletic director Jack Lengyel said. "It has nothing to do with Philadelphia . . . We are national institutions, and this exposes us to somewhat different markets, a different audience. " "We firmly believe that Philadelphia is the traditional home of the Army- Navy game, and look forward to close professional and warm personal associations in the future," West Point's athletic director, Albert Vanderbush, said in a letter informing Philadelphia officials of the decision.

All eyes will be on Philadelphia tomorrow for the 91st Army-Navy game.In the matchup, which starts at 2:30 p.m. before an anticipated sellout crowd at Veterans Stadium and a national TV audience, Army will try to even the series. Navy holds a 42-41 advantage, with seven ties. Navy's basketball team also will be in town this weekend, meeting the Penn Quakers at 7 tonight at the Palestra. The Quakers are led by guards Paul Chambers and Ken Graf, and center Vince Curran. In college basketball tomorrow evening, the St. Joseph's Hawks take on the Villanova Wildcats in a Big 5 City Series contest at the Spectrum.

Philadelphia is facing tougher-than-ever competition from cities across the nation in its bid to keep hosting the Army-Navy game. Realizing the economic value of the games, the academies want more than ever from the host city - a larger share of the gate, tickets, VIP stadium suites, and free transportation for all their midshipmen and cadets, totaling about 10,000 people. Still, 15 cities "have stepped up and are throwing a lot of money into their campaigns," said Tom Lynch, a retired two-star Navy admiral and Annapolis graduate.

It's still 21 months until an Army-Navy game can be played anywhere except Philadelphia, but already Baltimore, Jacksonville, Dallas and East Rutherford, N.J., are trying to lure the prestigious gridiron clash. Baltimore officials met yesterday with Army athletic director Carl Ullrich in Bordentown, N.J., in an attempt to convince him of the advantages of moving the 1989 game to their city. The advantages for the host city are substantial: several million dollars for the local economy and national television exposure.

They began arriving as early as 8 a.m., cars and vans sliding into the lots around Veterans Stadium, many bearing license plates from New York and Maryland. Soon the air was sweet with the aroma of barbecue smoke and the parking lots were alive with friendly, well-mannered tailgate parties. Before long, a stream of fans was flowing into the stadium for a football game that, for many, rings with a chime of patriotism and honored tradition. On a perfect late autumn day, the 100th Army-Navy game was played yesterday before a crowd of more than 70,000 at the Vet. Navy won, 19-9.

The first weekend in December is loaded with sports events, including one of the biggest rivalries in college football. The 93d Army-Navy game begins at 12:10 p.m. Saturday at Veterans Stadium. The parade of Army cadets and Navy Midshipmen into Veterans Stadium starts at 9:45 a.m. Navy leads the series, first played in 1890, 43-42; seven games ended in ties. The local pro teams all play this weekend, too. The Sixers meet the Detroit Pistons tonight in a 7:30 game at the Spectrum.

Like any military campaign, it featured major logistical considerations, spirited competition and a lot of talk of honor and tradition. But in the long run, the battle for the Army-Navy football game was won by New Jersey - and lost by Philadelphia - over a less militaristic matter. Carl Ullrich, Army athletic director, said the prospects of more money for both schools prompted officials at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., to make yesterday's decision to move the game out of Philadelphia for only the second time since 1945.

The excitement over tomorrow's game against Navy is palpable on this historic 16,000-acre Army compound. The phrase Go Army, Beat Navy is emblazoned on milk cartons, candy bars and water bottles. Signs lampooning Navy hang from many barracks windows. While cadets chat amiably about the game - and how a victory over Navy would secure bragging rights for a full year - they recognize that it comes as war continues in Iraq. That was made clear yesterday as a 2004 West Point graduate from Freehold, N.J., who was killed in Iraq was buried here in the same cemetery where Gen. George A. Custer was laid to rest.

City convention and tourism officials struggled yesterday to explain how a scheduling conflict cost Philadelphia its right to host the nationally televised Army-Navy football game next year - an event that would have pumped $10 million into the local economy. Instead of the game, the city will get a hematologists convention worth about $11 million to $12 million. It reached an agreement to hold the Army-Navy game in 2003 after sweetening a financial package with the military academies.

Sometimes, local sporting-event history isn't made on the field of play. That was the case on Dec. 2, 1961, when John F. Kennedy attended the Army-Navy game at what was then called Municipal Stadium (on the current site of the Wells Fargo Center). So epic was the visit that traffic on Broad Street was routed to run southbound-only starting at 10 a.m. to handle traffic of "evacuation proportions," according to that day's Daily News. Coverage was bigger on logistics and protocol than X's and O's. As a spectator, JFK, though a Navy man, would "maintain traditional impartiality," the paper assured.

Jailed dissident deserving of prize When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a richly deserving Liu Xiaobo of China, he was unable to attend ("Peace prize goes to jailed dissident," Saturday). He is imprisoned for publicly advocating for human rights in a country whose government finds such activity highly offensive (and treasonous). This situation is not unprecedented. The 1935 peace prize recipient, a German, Carl von Ossietzky, also missed his award ceremony. He was in a Nazi concentration camp at the time and Hitler forbade any of Ossietzky's supporters to attend.

It makes sense that a marathon tailgate party at the Army-Navy game was organized by a bunch of long-distance runners. And so it was 5:30 a.m. when Mike Erwin steered a rented truck into the M parking lot at Lincoln Financial Field - more than nine hours before the coin toss for the 111th gridiron showdown between the archrivals. Temperatures were still in the 20s on the dark and quiet Saturday morning, a time when dedicated marathoners are usually out training. But for this special event, Erwin and his friends set up for what would be a long run of partying - through the afternoon kickoff and wrapping up with what these former West Pointers hoped would be victory drinks in the evening.

As snowflakes drifted down Friday afternoon, six cadets from the U.S. Military Academy - one cradling a football - ran into Lot K at Lincoln Financial Field. "Stop right here," said Lt. Gen. David H. Huntoon Jr., West Point's superintendent, smiling and pointing to the ground at 3:38 p.m. "You did it. " The football never touched the ground through a frigid night in New Jersey, passing a turkey along the road in Bucks County, scores of honking cars, a couple of near misses on the road, plenty of "Go Army" yells, and the occasional spirited "Go Navy.

When retired Navy aviator Thomas J. Hudner Jr. walks toward midfield at Lincoln Financial Field Saturday afternoon for the coin toss to start the 111th Army-Navy game, the 2010 Navy cocaptains accompanying him will both be African Americans. Wyatt Middleton and Ricky Dobbs will make a fitting honor guard for Hudner, an 86-year-old Medal of Honor recipient whose remarkable life has intersected on at least two historic occasions with black pioneers of the U.S. Navy. In 1945, at the start of Hudner's final year there, Wesley Brown arrived at Annapolis.

Bill Lyon is a retired Inquirer sports columnist Soccer made simple: The Beautiful Game, that's what the rest of the world calls it. It is the sport of choice for virtually the entire planet. With one notable, ahem, exception. But we do seem to be gaining (55,407 at Lincoln Financial Field for a World Cup send-off victory by the U.S. team). We're still a couple of laps in arrears, and that's our loss, although understandable because we're weaned on football and consequently have a short attention span for anything served to us that isn't overloaded with violence and offense.

Thomas J. Elliott, 92, of Northeast Philadelphia, a company owner and college football referee who made a famously controversial call at a Princeton-Rutgers game, died Saturday, May 15, at Vitas Hospice at Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia. Mr. Elliott had been a referee for Division I college football games for 15 years when he was forced to make a difficult call at the 1974 Princeton-Rutgers contest. The stands were packed with rowdy fans and Rutgers was leading, 6-0, with 17 seconds left in the game when Princeton scored.

Thomas J. Elliott, 92, of Northeast Philadelphia, a company owner and college football referee who made a famously controversial call at a Princeton-Rutgers game, died Saturday, May 15, at Vitas Hospice at Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia. Mr. Elliott had been a referee for Division I college football games for 15 years when he was forced to make a difficult call at the 1974 Princeton-Rutgers contest. The stands were packed with rowdy fans and Rutgers was leading, 6-0, with 17 seconds left in the game when Princeton scored.

In Section 121, sunlit on the Army side, sat a special group of 85 soldiers and Marines at yesterday's Army-Navy game. They could say things nobody else could. Consider Row 18. Seat 1: "I got blown up. Hit with a mortar round," said Pfc. James Beyer, 22, of Reno, Nev., looking fit and ready for duty other than the scars on his neck and side of his head. "It's a nice sunny day. I'm happy to get out and see a game. " Seat 2: "I was shot in the head," said Matt Katka, 20, a private from New Hampshire.

LiLo's good deeds 'n' Tiger's gals Let's start with this Twitter tweet from that 'tweet Twitterer, Lindsay Lohan: "Focusing on celebrities and lies is so disconcerting, when we can be changing the world one child at a time. . . . " LiLo's in India filming a BBC 3 documentary on human trafficking in India. Noted! Now, let's get to those celebrities and lies. . . . A scandal like no other We'll say this about l'affaire Tiger Woods: So many women are involved that they're fighting among themselves!