The bullets and the guns that fire them are real. All the anecdotes about freshmen at either the Army or Navy military academies being treated like undisciplined truants by upper classmen are real. Then there’s the notion that the blood-curdling urgency of Army beating Navy or Navy defeating Army in their annual football game is just some time-honored cliché touted by broadcasters in the hope of improving ratings. Nope. It’s real. And perhaps nothing has ever captured all this with greater intensity and detail than “A Game of Honor,” a Showtime special that will debut Dec. 21.
For almost seven months, beginning in late May, camera crews from Showtime and CBS Sports were permitted inside the lockerrooms and classrooms, on football fields and training fields of both academies. The sweat was real. The chest-high muddy water cadets slogged through in full combat uniform was real. And damn right those bullets were real.
“Division I athletes at a lot of schools may get a few breaks, but there are no breaks for the Army and Navy football players,” said Peter Radovich Jr., the program’s producer. “They have the same demands that every cadet and midshipman have, so by following these football players we are being led into what life is like at the academies.”
Somewhat surprisingly, Army head coach Rich Ellerson was not hesitant about permitting his team to be under such a near-constant, occasionaly intrusive microscope.
“We met with [Showtime] and to be honest we’re used to this,” he said. “Not something as thorough and comprehensive as this one, but we’re used to people dipping their foot in the water to see what it’s about. This is far more comprehensive than anything I’ve ever heard about.”
One thing Ellerson did try to convey was his belief that he not be the center of attention.
“I wanted it to be about the players, the team, not about me,” he said. “There’s so much bigger a story than me. I hope I got that across. We knew this could be a tough year. I knew we were young. It was probably the wrong year. We watched guys handle adversity, but it’s not the happy ending we wanted. Because we had success last year throughout was no guarantee we’d have success this year. We knew between the schedule and the relative difficulty of the schedule it could be a tough year.”
It was. The Black Knights finished 3-9, their worst record in Ellerson’s three years as coach. Included among those losses was the team’s 10th straight loss to Navy. One particular portion of the program showed Ellerson addressing his team in the lockerroom, an area most coaches believe to be as sacrosanct as a church confessional.
“What I told the [TV] guys is I’ll say some things when they’re not around,” he said. “Around kickoff is not the time to get into some spell-binding mission. They probably got tired of me saying the same damn things. The same things win football games every week. Those are the things we have to focus on.”
Yes, the feature-length program is about football, the players, really, but options and defensive formations and coaches preparing their teams for games is just a backdrop. For all those months, the Black Knights and Midshipmen were followed by cameras hoping to catch…something. And, boy, did they.
It is divided into three parts – life for an Army football player, life for a Navy player, and the game between the two teams itself. You’re seeing the first day at West Point, when freshmen get their heads shaved and begin the process by which they are broken down and put back together. The procedure is similar in Annapolis. And whether you’re a potential first-string quarterback or a cadet whose name will not be known beyond friends and family, it’s the same. Every cadet is a scholarship student, but there are no free rides. And there is certainly no one -- yes, even those first-string quarterbacks -- that will skate through four years (or more) studying phys ed or working towards an undeclared major.
Among the Army players featured are senior linebacker and co-captain Steve Erzinger and freshman running back Terry Baggett. Erzinger described drills in which cadets entered a simulated Iraqi village, filled with actors who speak the language. Not exactly taking introduction to Spanish.
Baggett is seen on his very first day at West Point, at which time an upper classman is rather loud and adamant about where his toes should be on a line. Baggett’s observation about that ammo training, by the way?
“Kinda scary,” he said. “You’re with a group with live ammunition and one mistake…someone can get hurt pretty bad.”
Kinda scary is a likely accurate depiction of Alex Teich’s immediate future. The Navy running back and co-captain was accepted to join the Navy SEALs following graduation. The SEALs, recall, are the cast of real-life heroes whose actions resulted in any references to Osama Bin Laden having to be made in the past tense.
SEALs training is 25 weeks of the most gut-busting work anyone in this quadrant of the galaxy will ever experience. Despite this, Teich, incredibly, was suspended from the Midshipmen’s game earlier this season against Southern Mississippi. His crime? Following Navy’s 35-34 overtime loss to Air Force Oct. 1 Teich, rather than staying on the field while both teams sang their alma maters, left for the lockerroom, the only Navy player to do so. Try to picture a coach, say, from a Southwest Conference or Big East team doing the same. Think the folks at Penn State might settle for something as heinous as this?
Despite the relationships with the crew Ellerson made during filming, he admitted to being hesitant about watching the program.
“I haven’t. I plan not to,” he said. “It’s going to be out there. I hate the fact that I’m in it. There’s such a great story, about West Point, about West Point players, but not the coach.”
Well, whether Ellerson likes it or not, he is part of the puzzle. Perhaps not the biggest piece, but surely one whose absence could not be rationalized. For those who can do so, make sure those VCRs and DVD players are cranked. This one is a keeper.
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