A Team for America: The Army-Navy Game That Rallied a Nation

Purdue University historian Roberts (Joe Louis: Hard Times Man) uses WWII to establish the context of the 1944 football game between the top two ranked teams. The game was a diversion from the difficult times at home and abroad. It was a time when “rationing, shortages, and continual privations... was enough to make people long wistfully for the Great Depression”; the D-Day invasion is told through the eyes of West Point graduates and former football players who “revered the Academy.” Roberts begins his buildup with the hiring of Army coach Earl “Red” Blaik, the first coach hired by the academy; all previous coaches were active duty officers. Blaik had his personnel and system in place by 1944 to avenge three straight losses to Navy. The game itself is saved for the final chapter, but is a muted climax unable to compete with the historical context surrounding it. Even so, the history of the West Point football program is an engrossing tale full of 20th-century military icons. B&w photos. (Dec.)