John F. Kennedy: 50 years later - Army vs Navy 1963. I’m the son of an officer who served in the US Army. I was born at Rodríguez Army Hospital in Fort Brooke in Old San Juan and I spent time as a child on Army bases in Puerto Rico, Japan and Ft. Lewis, Washington. Some would consider me an “Army brat”. Since I was two years old I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps, join the Army and become an officer. In 1958 I fell in love with sports magazines. Reading the pages of Sports Illustrated, Sport Magazine and the Sporting News transported my mind to the major cities and college campuses throughout the United States where professional and collegiate sports were played. No need for me to be there in person, the articles, stories and pictures were so descriptive that I felt as though I was there for every game regardless the sport. If you visit my home in San Juan, I’ll share with you hundreds and hundreds of back issues from 1958 to 1970 of these and other magazines that I have stored in nearly a dozen metal footlockers. That year I watched the annual Army vs. Navy football game in black and white on our living room television set. This game featured a matchup of two Heisman Trophy winners — Armys Pete Dawkins, the team’s captain and the 1958 winner, and Navys Joe Bellino, the 1960 winner. These two exceptional players were also exceptional men; Dawkins was ultimately a Rhodes scholar, Brigadier General and candidate for Senate, while Bellino played for the AFLs Boston Patriots and served in the Navy and Naval Reserve for 28 years. Dawkins Cadets finished the 1958 season unbeaten with a 22–6 win over the Midshipmen. It would be Armys last unbeaten season and legendary coach Red Blaiks last at the helm. Bellino was a sophomore that year and Army had Bill Carpenter, its famous “lonesome end”. Mark Beech has written an excellent book on that team and that year - “When Saturday Mattered Most”, the last golden season of Army football. I remember how happy I was after Army’s victory and I dreamed of attending West Point after my high school graduation. I was eight years old. Army’s fortunes would change losing the annual contest for the next five years starting with a lopsided loss in 1959 to the Joe Bellino led team, 43 – 12. I would come to know that the 5’ 9” and 187 pound running back was from Winchester, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. He scored three touchdowns that afternoon in Philadelphia. The 1960 contest was close with Navy winning 17 – 12. I remember crying after the game, upset at Bellino and my mother reminded me that it was “only a game”. I continued to follow Army football, now coached by Paul Dietzel who brought his three-team concept from LSU – the White, Go and Chinese Bandits. At West Point, the White team, which played both ways, became the “Regulars;” the Go Team was his offensive specialists; and the Chinese Bandits were defensive specialists. Each team had its own area of the sideline bench; each player’s uniform number was painted on the bench, signifying where he sat during the game. Navy quarterback Roger Staubach was the man to beat if Army stood any chance of winning the contest going into the 1963 match up. Earlier this week I spoke with Emma-Jean Weinstein, one of our rising stars at WBUR, about her current project at the station putting together a timeline of the life of President John F. Kennedy for our webpage. I mentioned that for some of us the annual Army -Navy game in 1963 and the circumstances surrounding it and the assassination of JFK were as memorable as the assassination itself. I was 13 years old in 8th grade at Commonwealth High School in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 50 years ago I can’t remember exactly where I was or who announced the president’s assassination…and I have a pretty good memory for things…but I do know that I was at school. I do remember that I was looking forward to the annual matchup between the two academy teams that was scheduled for November 30th in The City of Brotherly Love. Several years later, during the summer of 1995, in honor of my father’s 80th birthday, I invited him to join my son and I for a trip to the Major League All-Star game in Arlington, Texas. I had four tickets, three for us and the fourth for Rubén Blades. We arrived on Friday, early enough to check in, gather our tickets and credentials in anticipation of the festivities at FanFest the following day prior to Rubén’s arrival from Los Angeles. That afternoon we went to Six Flags and enjoyed the rides before calling it a day. Saturday morning we decided to start our day by paying homage to the memory of the late John F. Kennedy. While walking through the Dealey Plaza, in the historic West End district of downtown Dallas and the Sixth Floor Museum, we couldn’t help but wonder what might have been if not for the events of November 22, 1963. The days following his assassination, as we all came to grips to understand the impact of that tragic moment, the football game took on another meaning for everyone and it’s status was unknown until members of the Kennedy family intervened and urged that the game be played. They asked the Pentagon to release the following statement the day after the president had been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery: The secretary of the Army and the secretary-designate of the Navy decided today that the Army-Navy football game will be postponed one week in deference to the memory of President Kennedy. Consideration was given to cancellation of the game. However, President Kennedy’s family requested that the game be played. The game will be dedicated to his memory. So on Saturday, December 7th, Roger Staubach, the recently named winner of the Heisman Trophy that year, led his teammates against an underdog squad of cadets led by their quarterback, Carl “Rollie” Stichweh. Navy was ranked number two in the nation and Army brought a 7 – 2 record against the Midshipmen’s 8 and 1 season. The Navy teams gold uniforms and helmets had “Drive for Five” as their motto. I won’t go into all of the details but suffice to say that this game was a nail biter right to the very end when time ran out for the cadets from West Point on fourth down as they were poised to take the lead on Navy’s two yard line in a boisterous, chaotic ending to a 21 – 15 final. Of the several books that I have read about this storied rivalry, “The President’s Team” by Michael Connelly is one of my favorites. This month, CBS Sports Network has been broadcasting a documentary about that game, played 15 days after the presidents assassination “Marching On: 1963 Army-Navy Remembered”. That would be the last Army-Navy game that I would see in its entirety. Since then I have seen portions of the annual event, I still root for Army but no longer do I sit riveted to the action from beginning to end as I did back then. Fifty years later, its still very much part of my memory of that fateful day, November 22nd 1963.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 01:16:26 +0000