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

“Let’s go,” Murphy said.

Murphy, Caccese, and Mayer began walking up the Army sideline with a squad of agents trailing behind them. From the stands it must have looked very strange, Stevie thought. The FBI approached Ellerson, who took off his headset. There was a brief nod and then he waved at Daniels, who trotted over.

Stevie was dying to hear the conversation, but Daniels’s body language was clear enough. As Murphy began speaking, he lurched backward. Then he was shouting.

If any of it bothered Murphy, it didn’t show, and he cut him off effectively. With the crowd beginning to murmur, Daniels waved the other officials over. Stevie saw Ken Niumatalolo several yards onto the field on his side, clearly confused by what the commotion could be. After a few more seconds of discussion, which included Terry Ramspeth screaming while taking his cap off and throwing it onto the ground, the FBI men and the officials began walking off the field.

The fans didn’t know how to react. Some booed. Others hooted. Mostly there was confused silence. Murphy pointed at Pete Dowling, who nodded and began talking into his wrist. Within a minute Stevie knew what he had been saying.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the PA announcer said, “we apologize, but there will be a brief delay because there is a problem with the game officials.”

“Yeah, there’s a problem,” Stevie heard a fan yell from the stands. “They SUCK!”

Dowling turned to Bob Campbell. “Bob, go tell Niumatalolo what’s going on and that we’re going to need a few minutes. They can keep their kids out here or take them back to the locker rooms. Whatever they want. Then meet me back in the tunnel; we’ve got the ADs en route.”

Campbell nodded and took off across the field.

“You two can come too if you want,” Dowling said. “You started all this. You have any brilliant ideas where we can find some new officials?”

Chet Gladchuk, the Navy athletic director, and Kevin Anderson, his counterpart at Army, were clearly confused when they arrived in the tunnel a few minutes later.

“What’s going on?” Gladchuk asked. “The officials just went by me with a bunch of agents. Are they being arrested for incompetence or something?”

“Gentlemen, I’m sorry, but we’ve got a situation here,” Agent Caccese said. “If those seven men had continued officiating, I can tell you with certainty that the game was going to end regulation at zero-zero.”

“You aren’t the first one to make that comment today,” Anderson said. “What’d they do, bet the under?”

“That’s about the size of it. We can get you details later,” Caccese said. “For the moment, we need seven new officials for the game to continue. Any ideas?”

Gladchuk and Anderson both gaped at him.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Gladchuk said.

“As serious as someone trying to fix the Army-Navy game,” Caccese answered.

“We could call Harold Neve at the ACC,” suggested Anderson. But no one seemed to think he’d be all that helpful.

Stevie ventured, “Would the officials for the Redskins game tomorrow be in town already?”

“Maybe-but it would take a while to find out and get them here. And the NFL rules are different…”

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Susan Carol said, “What about the high school officials? The ones honored before the game?”

Anderson snapped his fingers. “Of course. They’re all up in a corporate box, watching the game.”

“We need seven of them,” Caccese said.

“What about uniforms?” Susan Carol asked.

“They have to keep spares in the locker room,” Gladchuk said. “I’m sure someone who works here for the Redskins can help us with that.”

Caccese looked at Anderson and Gladchuk. “No matter how good or bad they may be, at least they won’t be cheating,” he said.

Both athletic directors nodded. Then everyone pulled out their cell phones and started to dial.

It took about thirty minutes to sort out which of the high school officials would take over the game and to get them outfitted and ready. Agent Mayer returned to say that the seven officials and Todd were being taken to the FBI office downtown to be charged with game-fixing and assorted other gambling-related crimes. He and Dowling then went with the two athletic directors to explain the plan to the coaches.

The teams had both gone to the locker rooms, and the crowd was told nothing more than that the delay simply had to do with a problem with the officials. They would learn the rest soon enough, Stevie imagined. There were some murmurs, but no one was leaving, that was for sure. The weather was cold but not frigid, and the sun was shining down.

“That’s one of the good things about a military crowd: they don’t question things as much as some other people might,” Kelleher said. He and Tamara had managed to get downstairs with their all-access passes after Stevie and Susan Carol had called to fill them in.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Tamara said. “Stevie, what tipped you off? We were all sitting in the press box thinking it was a horribly reffed game but that at least the calls were balancing out.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Stevie said. “But when the line judge went off on Dr. Taylor after he said something about keeping anyone from scoring, it seemed like an over-the-top reaction. Just like the way the officials overreacted about Susan Carol’s articles. Plus, I believed Susan Carol. She didn’t see how those calls at the Notre Dame game could be honest mistakes, so I started to believe they were dishonest mistakes.”

“And the kid Todd was stupid enough to make the call to confirm the bets from the locker room,” Kelleher said. “That’s unreal. He walks out into the hall and uses his cell phone, they never get caught.”

“True,” Susan Carol said. “But now they’ve got all those confirmation numbers on tape.”

“Well, we’ve got to go upstairs and let our papers know what happened,” Kelleher said. “I’m told the FBI is putting out a press release on the whole thing within an hour, but we can at least get some people moving downtown-checking out who these guys are, their backgrounds, things like that. You guys stay on the sidelines and focus on the game. We’ll talk about how you’ll write it when it’s over. You may have to do something in the first person. Either way, you’ll both have a lot to do.”

They both nodded just as the new officials walked past, heading onto the field.

The teams were back out and had been given an extra couple of minutes to warm up after the long break.

Susan Carol had made her way back to the Navy sideline and found Captain Klunder waiting to shake her hand. “I hear we have you to thank for this, Susan Carol.”

“No-it was Stevie who put it together, really,” she tried to say, but then Ken Niumatalolo came up and lifted her off the ground in a bear hug.

“Looks like you were right,” he said.

“More than I thought, even,” Susan Carol said.

“Well, thank you for your story-and for sticking with it. You made all the difference. You saved the game-I can’t even tell you-” One of his coaches called him away, and he ran back to get ready for the game to resume.

Before she could start to take that in, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned, and Ricky Dobbs bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you,” he said. “For giving us back the game.”

Then he put on his helmet and ran onto the field.

Suddenly, Susan Carol wished she had a place to sit down.

The rest of the second half was everything you could have wanted an Army-Navy game to be. If the officials made a mistake, neither side seemed to notice-these refs were every player’s new best friend.