John Feinstein - The Rivalry - Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

Jeff Fair, Navy’s trainer, was livid. “Holding? No Army player got close enough to the kid to get held.”

“Oh, please,” Klunder said. “Please don’t let the refs steal another game-not this game.”

“Let’s not worry yet,” Susan Carol said. “That’s not one of the officials from the Notre Dame game.”

“They really should have changed the officials,” Fair said.

The penalty put Navy back to the Army 32. Dobbs tried a screen pass on second down, but it went nowhere. On third down he tried to give the ball to Murray on a late draw, but the play only picked up a yard. Trying to get some momentum back, Kenny Niumatalolo decided to go for it on fourth down and eleven, but a pass to Greene in the end zone was broken up.

From the Army sidelines, Stevie watched as Army took over the ball and began its first drive of the game. The sophomore quarterback Trent Steelman was running the option offense nearly as smoothly as Dobbs. The Cadets picked up three quick first downs and were soon at the Navy 30. Steelman sprinted left with the ball and made a last-second pitch to slotback Steve Carpenter. Carpenter caught the ball with a full head of steam and raced to the Navy 5-yard line.

Dick Hall and Dean Taylor were high-fiving as the Army bench went crazy.

“Hang on, fellas,” Tim Kelly said. “Take a look.”

Sure enough, a yellow flag was lying on the turf not that far from where they were standing. This time the umpire had made the call. As Daniels opened his mike to indicate that left guard Joel Davis had been called for a hold, Taylor was screaming at him.

“How do you see a guard holding in the middle of the line on a pitch?” he asked. “What was that, a makeup call?”

Stevie made himself scarce behind Dick Hall as the ref glared in their direction. The ball was being marched back to the Navy 40. Instead of a first and goal at the 5, it was first and twenty at the 40.

“You called it, Tim,” Hall said. “The score is tied. One bad call each.”

Stevie looked at the scoreboard. The first quarter was almost over and the score was tied: 0-0.

It stayed that way as the first quarter melted into the second. Both teams would make good yardage, but then the defenses seemed to really dig in when they were in the red zone and no one could score. At one point, Army’s Derek Klein intercepted a Dobbs pass on a quick out pattern and raced thirty-nine yards down the field for a touchdown. But before the Army people could even begin celebrating, Stevie spotted the flag: interference on Klein. Army coach Rich Ellerson was beside himself: “There wasn’t anything close to contact,” he was screaming at the side judge who had made the call.

Navy took possession again, but nerves were high and the Mids got stalled by consecutive penalties for having a man in motion.

“Well, give them credit,” Kelly said. “The refs are calling bad penalties equally on both teams.”

The game was halted for a TV time-out. Stevie glanced at the scoreboard: there was 3:21 until halftime, and the game was still scoreless.

Terry Ramspeth, the line judge, had walked over near where Stevie was standing during the time-out. He was, Stevie suspected, giving him the evil eye, but Stevie was doing his best to keep calm and look the other way. Dean Taylor, standing next to him, was a bit more of a hothead on the sidelines, as usual.

“What’s your problem?” he yelled at Ramspeth. “Why don’t you stop staring at the kid and focus on the game?”

“Settle down, Coach,” Ramspeth said.

“I’m not a coach,” Taylor said. “Am I wearing a headset?”

Ramspeth didn’t have an answer for that one, and Taylor kept going. “How many more phantom calls are you guys going to make today?” he asked. “Are you going to make sure NO ONE scores in this game?”

Taylor had clearly hit a nerve. Ramspeth walked right up to him and said, “Okay, that’s it,” and threw a flag into the air. Daniels instantly trotted over.

“What’ve you got, Terry?” he asked.

“I don’t even know who this guy is,” he said. “But he’s wearing Army gear and he’s screaming profanities at me. Unsportsmanlike conduct.”

“Profanities?” Taylor said. “That’s an absolute lie.”

Rich Ellerson came sprinting down the sideline. “What’s going on with you guys, Mike? You’re throwing flags on my team doc?”

“Terry says he used profanity.”

Taylor cut in. “Complete and utter lie.”

Hall and Kelly jumped in too. “No way,” they both said. “He was talking to him, but there was no cursing.”

Stevie wanted to back Taylor up too, but he figured he’d better keep his mouth shut.

“Give me a minute,” said Daniels, who pulled Ramspeth away to talk. It looked like a heated conversation-Ramspeth was waving his arms; Daniels kept putting his palms downward to indicate he needed to calm down. Finally Daniels nodded and stepped clear of Ramspeth and opened his microphone.

Pulling his flag from his back pocket, he waved it in the air. “There is no flag,” he said simply. Then he trotted over to Ellerson. “I’m cutting you some slack because it’s an emotional game. But one more word from your sideline and the flag will stick.”

Ellerson nodded but didn’t say anything until the officials walked away. Then he turned to Taylor, Kelly, and Hall, his voice surprisingly soft. “You guys need to cool it. Doesn’t matter how right you are and how wrong they are. We can’t afford an unsportsmanlike in a scoreless game.”

They all nodded as Daniels blew his whistle to put the ball back in play.

Taylor was still shaking his head five minutes later. “Man, usually refs are thicker-skinned than that. Guy went nuts, didn’t he?”

Stevie smiled. “Well, you did imply he wasn’t going to let anyone score.”

Dicky Hall laughed. “Yeah, but he’s said much worse and never gotten that strong a reaction.”

“Much worse,” Tim Kelly agreed.

“Hey!” Taylor protested. “Whose side are you on?”

Stevie laughed with them but then suddenly froze. What if…?

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Stevie told his friends, and as Army came out of the huddle to resume play, he began running down the field to the end zone so he could cross to the Navy side. Susan Carol was standing with two men in Navy uniforms when he got there.

“Hey, you. Can you believe this game?” she said. “At least neither team can say the refs are cheating them. Every time one team gets a bad call, then the other one does too.”

Stevie was a bit winded, so he didn’t respond right away. “Tell me again what your dad told you about betting and the over-under?”

Susan Carol shot him a look as Steelman picked up four yards and the crowd on the sideline moved away from them to follow the play.

“What-?”

“Just repeat it for me.”

She sighed but did as asked. “If you bet the over-under, the bookie picks a number and you say whether the total score for both teams will be more or less than that number. What is this about?”

“What’s the score?” Stevie asked.

“Nothing-nothing.”

“And what’s happened every time someone gets close to scoring?”

She opened her mouth to answer and then stopped. “Oh my God!” she said. “Every time someone has had a chance to score, there’s been a penalty.”

Steelman threw an incomplete pass in the direction of Michael Arnott, leaving Army at third and six.

“It’s the perfect solution, right?” Stevie said. “Everyone sits back and says, ‘Well, the officiating may be bad, but it’s been bad both ways.’ They can’t use the same tack as at Notre Dame. This way they can control the game without making anyone suspicious.”