‘Battles at Annapolis’: The Premier College Rivalry

‘Two Remarkable Football Games in the Army–Navy Rivalry,’ the book’s sub-title, is a riveting account of two Army-Navy games.

David Gendell tells riveting accounts of two Army-Navy football games in "Battles at Annapolis: Two Remarkable Football Games in the Army–Navy Rivalry.”

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 football appeared. Teams like 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 the two service academies of West Point and Annapolis. 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, usually Philadelphia, halfway between the two schools.