From the mid-1880s through the end of the 1950s, college football was the autumn spectator sport. Pro football was the sport’s stepchild until the 1960s, when televised pro football surpassed the college game’s popularity. Teams such as Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, and Pennsylvania were followed nationally.
No college football rivalry during that early period caught the national imagination quite like the one between two service academies: the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The Army–Navy game was so popular that neither of the school’s stadiums could accommodate everyone who wanted to attend. It was usually held at a neutral site with a massive stadium. Often, this was Philadelphia, halfway between the two schools.
