Gangway for Navy: The Story of Football at the United States Naval Academy, 1879 to 1950

Washington, D.C: Columbia Publishing Co, 1951. First Edition. Hard Cover. Good/No Jacket. 0x0x0. First edition. 1/4 inch tear to spine head, 1 inch internal tear near spine base, edges lightly foxed, bookplate on front endpaper. 1951 Hard Cover. 284 pp. Navy and Army are the nation's football teams - the glamour boys of the great autumn sport. Over a hundred thousand people jam the Philadelphia city stadium to see them battle each other every year, and three times that num¬ber would be present if there was any park that would hold them. Notre Dame has its "subway alumni" in New York and ether places, but Navy and Army have as their rooters millions of Americans who have never seen either institution and who are not merely trying to hitch a ride on the band¬wagon of a chronic winner. Outnumbering Notre Dame's Bronx cheering section by many millions, Navy has its "cracker box" alumni in Kalama¬zoo, its "fish wharf" alumni in San Francisco, its "beach-front" alumni in Miami Beach, its "mill dolly" alumni in Oshkosh, its "Latin quarter" alumni in New Orleans, its "sun tan" alumni in Albuquerque and millions of this type of well wishers in thousands of American communities. Navy has been the People's Choice - the more popular of the two service schools - in recent years because since 1943 they have gone into the glamorous service contest as the underdog. And until 1950 rightly so. It is a dominant feature of the American spirit of fair play that most people like to see the underdog rise up and bite the favorite.