It appears the government shutdown’s list of casualties will not include tackle football.
The annual rivalry game between the Air Force and Naval academies will kick off in Annapolis at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Defense canceled all intercollegiate sporting events for all three service academies. However, it was announced Wednesday the Secretary of Defense had given permission for the Air Force-Navy and Army-Boston College games to be played as planned.
Given the current state of affairs, there may be some outrage to the news the government is allowing these games to be played.
Obviously, the government shouldn’t spend money on a game during a time when so many people are out of work; our national parks, monuments and buildings are closed down; and it is impossible to watch a live panda via webcam.
No one would argue those points, but the fact is no public funds are needed.
The Naval Academy’s athletic department is privately funded, and it’s hard to imagine the school isn’t willing to use those assets to keep the game alive. Considering the game will be played before a sold-out crowd and CBS is going to broadcast it across the country, Navy would actually lose money if the game had remained canceled.
Plus, Air Force is a member of the Mountain West Conference. Like every other FBS conference, it has discretionary funds it could use to help with the funding.
And if neither of those methods are plausible, then the NCAA, which makes billions of dollars without its athletes seeing any of that money, needs to step up to the plate and foot the bill.
Obviously the Department of Defense has more important things to deal with right now, but if no public funds were needed there was no reason to call the games off.
Football is not essential to life and can basically be boiled down to a fun distraction for the vast majority of collegiate athletes. But no amateur athlete deserves that fun distraction more than those at the service academies who won’t graduate to millions of dollars and an NFL career, but to years of heroic service for their country.
I was born across the river from West Point, N.Y. and attended a number of Army football games growing up. The level of football or athletes doesn’t compare to the Southeastern Conference, but for those intra-academy games, the passion is every bit as real.
Playing in those service academy games is a huge tradition at all three schools. Players, cadets and alumni all care deeply about the games and look at winning the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy like LSU fans look at a SEC Championship.
Canceling the first leg of that competition would have effectively ruined it for all three academies. That means an entire senior class of cadets would never have gotten to fight for their school on the gridiron before heading overseas for much more serious battles.
It is important to keep things in perspective and understand that these are just games. But at a time when so many great American institutions remain frozen, waiting for Congress to sort itself out, it would have been a real shame to see another tradition canceled when it didn’t need to be.
James Moran is a 21-year-old mass communications senior from Beacon, N.Y.