Cameron, T. C.

Gibbons, Thomas J.

English

U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons

Naval War College ReviewVolume 71Number 3 Summer Article 182018Navy Football: Return to GloryThomas J. GibbonsT. C. CameronFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationGibbons, Thomas J. and Cameron, T. C. (2018) "Navy Football: Return to Glory," Naval War College Review: Vol. 71 : No. 3 , Article18.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol71/iss3/181 6 0  NAVA L  WA R  C O L L E G E  R E V I E Waviation, but in the end it falls short of delivering more-thorough reporting�ROBERT C� RUBELNavy Football: Return to Glory, by T� C� Cameron� Charleston, SC: History Press, 2017� 189 pages� $21�99�As both a U�S� Military Academy (USMA) graduate and the father of a USMA graduate, I jumped at the chance to read a book about the success of the U�S� Naval Academy (USNA) football team� Let’s face it: Navy has a winning program that has dominated Army football in recent years, even though both teams draw from the same pool of talented high school athletes� T� C� Cameron traces the history of USNA’s football team, including its comeback, or “return to glory,” over the past fifteen years�Bill Belichick, the legendary coach of the New England Patriots, wrote the foreword, in which he pays tribute to the Navy coaches and midshipmen who taught him the game of football� “When I think of Navy football, my early role models were some of the biggest legends in the program’s history” (p� 7)� Belichick grew up in Annapolis and his father, Steve Belichick, was an assistant football coach at the Naval Academy for thirty-four years�Cameron first traces the history of Navy football� He describes the period from 1950 to 1963 as its “Camelot” years� The Navy football team was successful under Coach Eddie Erdelatz and his assistant coach Wayne Hardin, who later succeeded him� During these years, Navy also built the Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium� The Navy football team was winning consistently, and legends such as Tom Lynch and Heisman Trophy winners Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach were winning the hearts and minds of football fans across the country� Even President John F� Kennedy, himself a Navy veteran,supported the Navy team� Kennedy’sassassination in November 1963 was atremendous blow to the team, and manywondered whether the Army-Navygame would even be played the weekafterward� Ranked number two in thecountry, Navy won the game, then wenton to lose to top-ranked Texas in theCotton Bowl� After the following season,as Cameron puts it, “Camelot was over�Without knowing it, a long cold winterdescended on the Navy program� Itwould last almost forty years” (p� 26)�Cameron characterizes the years between 1995 and 2001 as the “Big Tease�” Under Coach Charlie Weather-bie, Navy football initially did well, experiencing winning seasons� However, as Cameron writes, “[h]is finish was a disaster, as Navy lost seventeen of the last eighteen” games he coached, “and twenty of twenty-one overall” (p� 51)� Navy football’s true renewed success began when Coach Paul Johnson, the offensive coordinator in 1995–96, returned, and Cameron portrays 2002–2007 under the heading “Johnson Returns�” Johnson’s record at Navy was 43-27, with five bowl appearances in sixseasons� More importantly, Johnson’steams crushed both Army and AirForce, losing only once against anotherservice academy� The football teamhas continued to have winning seasonsunder Coach Ken Niumatalolo from2008 to the present, a period Cameroncharacterizes as a “Ball of Fire” becauseNWC_Summer2018Review.indb   160 5/1/18   11:11 AM1Gibbons and Cameron: Navy Football: Return to GloryPublished by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2018B O O K  R E V I E WS  1 6 1of the coach’s dynamic personality on the field� Cameron makes the point that “[i]f Ken Niumatalolo is your neighbor, you think he’s a great guy� But if you play football for Navy, in an instant, he can be your worst nightmare” (p� 107)�Cameron does a superb job recounting the intense rivalries that Navy has with not only Army and Air Force but Notre Dame� He describes the 2007 win over Notre Dame—after forty-three consecu-tive losses—as follows: “The night ‘the Streak’ died—the longest streak in NCAA history—eighty thousand fans at Notre Dame Stadium watched in stunned silence as Navy let go of forty-three years of misery, embarrassment, and frustra-tion” (p� 136)� He details the joy—and other emotions—of football games with Army and Air Force, with the overall winner receiving the Commander in Chief ’s Trophy� Few other writers can match Cameron’s insights into and ap-preciation of the distinctive qualities of the Army-Navy game� “The annual bit of military theater, greater than any other game, makes the Army-Navy legacy a lit-tle sweeter� The nation’s game” (p� 106)�Nonetheless, I struggled somewhat with the book� I found it difficult that Cameron seems to be telling two stories, in that as he writes about the chronol-ogy of Navy football he intersperses the story of Navy’s fierce rivalries with Army, Air Force, and Notre Dame� At times the story was challenging to follow because I was reading about things from two different perspectives: one that portrayed a chronology, and another that recounted memorable games with Navy’s leading rivals�The appendices highlighting Navy’s unforgettable games, unforgettable seasons, GOATS (read the book), play-ers, coaches, and a potpourri of other topics all add value and make this book a must-read for football fans across the country� Cameron has shined a spotlight on Navy’s football program through its highs and lows, with colorful com-mentary that makes it an enjoyable read�THOMAS J� GIBBONSThe Battleship Holiday: The Naval Treaties and Capital Ship Design, by Robert C� Stern� Annapo-lis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017� 272 pages� $42�95�Robert Stern, a writer of more than twenty books on naval matters over three decades, opens his latest effort by admitting that he is tackling a subject on which much has been written already� The Battleship Holiday explores the history and technical design of capital ships that the five signatories to the 1922 Five-Power Treaty—Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy—plus Germany built during and after the “battleship holiday” that the treaty imposed� His fresh approach to analyzing capital ship design and construction during this period addresses the ships and their innova-tions chronologically rather than along national lines� Throughout this chronol-ogy, he explores three major threads: diplomacy, technology, and operational performance� Stern offers that, while other treatments address one or two of these threads, his assessment of all three provides “more complete insight into the interplay of factors that led different nations to build different ships” (p� 10) to achieve their respective national goals�Divided into two parts, the book first explores how capital ships evolved to the point at which the world’s naval powers NWC_Summer2018Review.indb   161 5/1/18   11:11 AM2Naval War College Review, Vol. 71 [2018], No. 3, Art. 18https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol71/iss3/18

Navy Football: Return to Glory

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Navy Football: Return to Glory

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