Naval War College Review Volume 71 Article 18 Number 3 Summer

2018 Navy Football: Return to Glory Thomas J. Gibbons

T. C. Cameron

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Recommended Citation Gibbons, Thomas J. and Cameron, T. C. (2018) "Navy Football: Return to Glory," Naval War College Review: Vol. 71 : No. 3 , Article 18. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol71/iss3/18

This 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 for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 160 NAVAL WAR COLLEGEGibbons REVIEW and Cameron: Navy Football: Return to Glory

aviation, but in the end it falls short of Corps Memorial Stadium. The Navy delivering more-thorough reporting. football team was winning consistently, and legends such as Tom Lynch and ROBERT C. RUBEL 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, Navy Football: Return to Glory, by T. C. Cameron. supported the Navy team. Kennedy’s Charleston, SC: History Press, 2017. 189 pages. $21.99. assassination in November 1963 was a tremendous blow to the team, and many As both a U.S. Military Academy wondered whether the Army-Navy (USMA) graduate and the father of game would even be played the week a USMA graduate, I jumped at the afterward . Ranked number two in the chance to read a book about the country, Navy won the game, then went success of the U.S. Naval Academy on to lose to top-ranked Texas in the (USNA) football team. Let’s face it: Cotton Bowl. After the following season, Navy has a winning program that has as Cameron puts it, “Camelot was over. dominated Army football in recent Without knowing it, a long cold winter years, even though both teams draw descended on the Navy program. It from the same pool of talented high would last almost forty years” (p. 26). school athletes. T. C. Cameron traces the history of USNA’s football team, Cameron characterizes the years including its comeback, or “return to between 1995 and 2001 as the “Big glory,” over the past fifteen years. Tease.” Under Coach Charlie Weather- bie, Navy football initially did well, Bill Belichick, the legendary coach of experiencing winning seasons. However, the New England Patriots, wrote the as Cameron writes, “[h]is finish was a foreword, in which he pays tribute to disaster, as Navy lost seventeen of the the Navy coaches and midshipmen last eighteen” games he coached, “and who taught him the game of football. twenty of twenty-one overall” (p. 51). “When I think of Navy football, my Navy football’s true renewed success early role models were some of the began when Coach Paul Johnson, the biggest legends in the program’s history” offensive coordinator in 1995–96, (p . 7). Belichick grew up in Annapolis returned, and Cameron portrays and his father, Steve Belichick, was an 2002–2007 under the heading “Johnson assistant football coach at the Naval Returns.” Johnson’s record at Navy was Academy for thirty-four years. 43-27, with five bowl appearances in six Cameron first traces the history of Navy seasons. More importantly, Johnson’s football . He describes the period from teams crushed both Army and Air 1950 to 1963 as its “Camelot” years. Force, losing only once against another The Navy football team was successful service academy. The football team under Coach Eddie Erdelatz and his has continued to have winning seasons assistant coach Wayne Hardin, who under Coach Ken Niumatalolo from later succeeded him. During these years, 2008 to the present, a period Cameron Navy also built the Navy–Marine characterizes as a “Ball of Fire” because

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of the coach’s dynamic personality on topics all add value and make this book the field. Cameron makes the point that a must-read for football fans across the “[i]f Ken Niumatalolo is your neighbor, country . Cameron has shined a spotlight you think he’s a great guy. But if you on Navy’s football program through its play football for Navy, in an instant, he highs and lows, with colorful com- can be your worst nightmare” (p. 107). mentary that makes it an enjoyable read.

Cameron does a superb job recounting THOMAS J. GIBBONS 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 The Battleship Holiday: The Naval Treaties and Streak’ died—the longest streak in Capital Ship Design, by Robert C. Stern. Annapo- NCAA history—eighty thousand fans at lis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017. 272 pages. Notre Dame Stadium watched in stunned $42.95. silence as Navy let go of forty-three years Robert Stern, a writer of more than of misery, embarrassment, and frustra- twenty books on naval matters over tion” (p. 136). He details the joy—and three decades, opens his latest effort by other emotions—of football games with admitting that he is tackling a subject on Army and Air Force, with the overall which much has been written already. winner receiving the Commander in The Battleship Holiday explores the Chief’s Trophy. Few other writers can history and technical design of capital match Cameron’s insights into and ap- ships that the five signatories to the preciation of the distinctive qualities of 1922 Five-Power Treaty—Great Britain, the Army-Navy game. “The annual bit of the United States, Japan, France, and military theater, greater than any other Italy—plus Germany built during and game, makes the Army-Navy legacy a lit- after the “battleship holiday” that the tle sweeter. The nation’s game” (p. 106). treaty imposed. His fresh approach Nonetheless, I struggled somewhat to analyzing capital ship design and with the book. I found it difficult that construction during this period Cameron seems to be telling two stories, addresses the ships and their innova- in that as he writes about the chronol- tions chronologically rather than along ogy of Navy football he intersperses national lines. Throughout this chronol- the story of Navy’s fierce rivalries with ogy, he explores three major threads: Army, Air Force, and Notre Dame. diplomacy, technology, and operational At times the story was challenging to performance. Stern offers that, while follow because I was reading about other treatments address one or two of things from two different perspectives: these threads, his assessment of all three one that portrayed a chronology, and provides “more complete insight into another that recounted memorable the interplay of factors that led different games with Navy’s leading rivals. nations to build different ships” (p. 10) to achieve their respective national goals. The appendices highlighting Navy’s unforgettable games, unforgettable Divided into two parts, the book first seasons, GOATS (read the book), play- explores how capital ships evolved to the ers, coaches, and a potpourri of other point at which the world’s naval powers

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