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

“Hey, Bob, you busy?” Rennie said, poking his head into an open doorway.

“Not at all, Matt, come in,” Stevie heard a voice say from inside the door.

“Got someone here I’d like to introduce you to,” Rennie said. “Bob Woodward, this is Steve Thomas.”

Woodward stood up and walked around his desk, hand extended. He was medium height, with dark hair, graying at the temples. Stevie knew he was in his sixties, but he looked younger.

“Hi, Steve, I’m Bob Woodward,” he said. “Very nice to have you here at the Post .”

He had a friendly smile and spoke slowly in one of those flat midwestern accents. Have came out “heav.”

“Bobby called this morning and said you might come by,” Woodward continued as they shook hands. “Why don’t you have a seat? I hear you’ve had quite a reporting career already.” Reporting came out “repording,” but what was funny was Woodward talking about Stevie’s reporting career. He was tempted to say something like “Yeah, I hear your career hasn’t been half bad either.”

“Well, we’ve gotten lucky a few times,” he said. “Susan Carol and I, that is. She’s sort of been my partner.”

Woodward was nodding. “I know,” he said. “I’ve read some of the stories you two have done together. Luck will carry you only so far. You two have done a lot of excellent repording.”

“I just finished reading All the President’s Men, and I think it’s fair to say that you and Carl Bernstein did some reporting”-he almost said “repording” but caught himself-“that was pretty excellent.”

Woodward laughed. “Now, we did get lucky,” he said. “We were lucky that Nixon and his men weren’t terribly smart.”

“Well, it was a great book.”

Rennie chimed in, “And then you were lucky to have Robert Redford play you in the movie version.”

“No, that was embarrassing,” Woodward said. “The funny thing is, Dustin Hoffman actually looked a lot like Carl. Needless to say, I don’t look anything like Bob.”

“Bob?” Stevie said.

“Oh, sorry, yeah, Redford. He goes by Bob. We actually became pretty good friends. Hey, did Bobby ever tell you about the time I introduced them?”

They were both shaking their heads now. “Bob came to see me in the newsroom one day. Bobby was walking past my office, so I waved him in and said, ‘Bobby Kelleher, meet Bob Redford.’ Bobby shook hands with him and said, ‘So, Bob, where do you work?’ ”

“He didn’t recognize Robert Redford?” Rennie asked, clearly amazed.

Woodward nodded. “Now, Bob is shorter in person than he seems on-screen and he was wearing glasses. But still…”

“So what happened?” Stevie asked.

“I said, ‘Bobby, Bob starred in your all-time favorite movie, the one you told me you saw three times in the same day.’ It took a minute, but then it dawned on him. All he could do was babble about how sorry he was after that. You don’t often see Bobby Kelleher completely flustered, but he was that time.”

Rennie stood up. His cell phone had just gone off. “Everyone’s here,” he announced to Stevie. “Bob, I want to thank you for making my day and maybe my month with that story.”

“Be sure to ask him about it,” Woodward said. “I’m certain he’d love to be reminded. Steve, it was a pleasure to meet you. I can’t wait to read what you come up with on this Army-Navy project.”

“What are you working on these days?” Stevie asked, caught up in the one-reporter-to-another repartee.

“A book on President Obama,” Woodward said.

Should have known, Stevie thought. I write about ballplayers, he writes about presidents. “Well, good luck with it,” he said, trying to sound grown-up.

“Thanks,” Woodward said as his phone started to ring. He looked at the phone and sighed. “It’s Joe Biden. I probably better take it.” He waved goodbye as he reached for the phone.

Yeah, Stevie thought, you should probably pick up when the vice president of the United States calls.

Rennie led Stevie, still in a state of semi-shock, through the newsroom to a conference room near the sports area.

A large group, including Bobby, Tamara, and Susan Carol, had gathered. Some were seated, others were pouring coffee and grabbing Danish and bagels from a table in the front of the room.

“Stevie!” Susan Carol called out, racing across the room to give him a hug and a quick kiss. She was dressed Sunday casual-blue jeans and a blouse with a sweater-but Stevie only noticed the boots that added to her height advantage. He almost said, “You had to wear the heels?” but wisely resisted.

“How was your trip in?” he asked.

“Easy,” she said. “We had breakfast at Krupin’s-you’d have loved it, a real New York deli.” Susan Carol knew that Stevie’s obsession-beyond sports-was food.

Kelleher and Mearns came over to say hello, and introductions were made around the table once everyone sat down. The meeting was being run by Matt Vita, the Post ’s sports editor, and Tom Goldman, the Herald ’s sports editor. In all there were about twenty people in the room.

“We want a good two weeks of stories in the run-up to the game,” Vita said. “Some will be predictable: history of the game, best Army-Navy games ever, rivalry stories, but I want everyone thinking about off-the-beaten-path stories. Camille and Kathy, we’re going to lean on you two for ideas since you know Navy so well and can probably offer insight on the Army side too.”

Stevie had done some reading yesterday, so he knew that Camille Powell was the Post ’s Navy beat writer and Kathy Orton covered the team for the Herald . He also knew that Navy had beaten Rutgers 31-7 on Saturday to raise its record to 8-2. They had one more game left before Army: next week at Notre Dame. Army had played a huge game too, winning at Air Force for-Stevie had gaped when he had read the stat in the paper-only the second time since 1977. The Cadets were also 8-2, with a home game left against Georgia Tech before they played Navy.

Vita and Goldman went around the table doling out assignments and asking for suggestions. “Stevie, Susan Carol, you two are our wild cards,” Vita said when it was their turn. “Stevie, since you don’t live that far from West Point, we’re going to send you up there. You’ll go to the Georgia Tech game next week, and then we want you to spend as much time there after that as you can. Susan Carol, we’ll send you to South Bend for the Navy-Notre Dame game and then on to Annapolis afterward.

“You’re just trying to find interesting story lines regardless of where you are. Susan Carol, since you’ll be with Navy, before you get started, get some guidance from Camille and Kathy.”

Susan Carol nodded.

“Oh, one more thing for you two,” Vita added. “On the Monday before the game, you’ll be going to the White House to interview President Obama.”

“Really-why us?” Stevie couldn’t help asking.

“We thought having the two of you do it might make it more interesting, get him a little off-message. Woodward set it up for us.”

Wow, Stevie thought, an interview with the president. Now that should make for some interesting repording.

The meeting lasted a couple hours, and then Stevie, Susan Carol, Kelleher, and Mearns went into Mearns’s office to talk more about story ideas. That done, they all went to get a late lunch before dropping Stevie at Union Station for his five o’clock train home again. Stevie’s only regret was that he didn’t get to spend any time alone with Susan Carol. And since she would be with Navy and he would be with Army, he wouldn’t even see her all that much before the game.