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Why Notre Dame Plays Navy
Notre Dame is second only to the Naval Academy in the number of students that become commissioned Naval officers. There is a shared history between the two schools.
This Saturday, the longest intersectional rivalry in college football history will continue. Notre Dame will meet Navy in Dublin, Ireland.
Despite the one-sided result the last few decades, most Notre Dame and Navy fans consider the series a sacred tradition for historical reasons. Both schools have strong football traditions going back to the beginnings of the sport. Notre Dame, like many colleges, faced severe financial difficulties during World War II, which were exacerbated by the fact that it was then still an all-male institution. The US Navy made Notre Dame a training center for V-12 candidates and paid enough for usage of the facilities to keep the University afloat. Notre Dame has since extended an open invitation for Navy to play the Fighting Irish in football and considers the game annual repayment on a debt of honor.
The series is marked by mutual respect, as evidenced by each team standing at attention during the playing of the other’s alma mater after the game, a tradition that started in 2005. Navy’s athletic director Chet Gladchuk Jr., on renewing the series through 2016, remarked “…it is of great interest to our collective national audience of Fighting Irish fans, Naval Academy alumni, and the Navy family at large.” The series is scheduled to continue indefinitely; renewals are a mere formality. On August 6, 2020, Navy and Notre Dame signed an agreement continuing their rivalry series for the next 12 seasons, from 2021 through 2032. – from Wikipedia
Notre Dame will always keep Navy on their football schedule unless Navy decides to end the rivalry.
Notre Dame offers Navy, Army, and Air Force ROTC to their students. Notre Dame has a long military history dating back to 1859. Click on the link for some Notre Dame military history and some archived photos.
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Published in Sports
I always learn a little something from your posts, Doug. Thank you.
My daughter, her husband (my son-in-law), and her son (my twelve-year-old grandson) are in Dublin this week for the game. My daughter is part of an American group that is attending because of some other celebration that is also going on at the same time, a peace treaty of some kind. My husband and therefore my children are Irish. :) It’s very exciting. :) :)
And, most years, it’s an easy win for ND.
Does anyone remember the book Navy Blue and Gold: A Story of the Naval Academy? Read it (and reread) it in elementary school back in the 1960s. It was 30 years old then. As I recall, it had a game with Notre Dame in it. Boy I loved that book back then.
There are some difficulties in playing Navy. They still play a true wishbone offense and are probably the only FBS team that does. In a good recruiting year for Navy that brings in players that excel in that offense makes them difficult to beat because a defender doesn’t see that offense. The offensive practice squad has no experience emulating that offense for the defense in practice.
I think that the bonds between Notre Dame and the Naval Academy is a good thing, and I didn’t know that Notre Dame has a big tradition in graduating Navy ROTC officers, though I myself have a personal history with the Coast Guard, not the Navy, so why would I?
We mostly hear about colleges like Virginia Military Institute and Texas A&M (Aggies) whose cadet programs are Army based, and of course Notre Dame has an academic reputation, beyond its obvious association with football.
But if I had my druthers, I’d pull varsity sports from all the military academies. The academies do not have a formal program for athletic scholarships, but they do recruit cadets and midshipman based on their skills at a particular sport.
It even happens with NCAA hockey. Both the Army and Air Force have hockey teams, and when the Army visited Fairbanks to play our hockey team, at the booster lunch I asked the coach how they recruited amongst each incoming class.
The coach said the wrong thing out loud and that they do recruit prospective cadets into their program, not from an existing class of cadets that have already reported aboard.
It’s not how it’s supposed to work.
Playing sports is a big part of cadet or midshipman life at the academies – my understanding is that it’s requirement they play a sport – but it doesn’t have to be varsity level.
As for Notre Dame, it’s no longer quite the football power house that it used to be. And it’s because they no longer recruit athletes that can’t make the academic grade. That’s to their credit.
The big football power house colleges all or mostly all, have reputations as party schools.
Big time varsity sports has mostly been a stain on a school’s academic reputation, and we’re the only major country that has bound sports to our high schools and colleges like this. If a kid growing up wants to be a soccer star in Europe, the way they start is become a part of a team that is not affiliated with the school he goes to. Much like our little league teams here in the U.S. set up for baseball.
And maybe Notre Dame and the Naval Academy can play a football game whose players are not varsity athletes, with the Notre Dame players consisting of ROTC students.
Because I bet you that none of the football players that actually take the field on a regular basis at Notre Dame are actually a part of the ROTC program. Their football program is probably too demanding for that and ROTC too.
Not that many, considering the overall record is 79–13–1 in favor of Notre Dame.
High school athletes that are considered for an athletic scholarship at ND have to meet with the admissions office for an interview to assess their ability to do the academic work to earn a degree, in addition to their interviews with the athletic department.
As an interesting side note ND does not allow fraternities or sororities. ND does not have athletic dorms so athletes’ room with the non-athletes. Residence hall life includes intramural sports, Hall versus hall that includes flag football as well as tackle football. The top two hall tackle football teams play for a championship in Notre Dame Stadium.
Photo courtesy of Notre Dame. The men of Siegfried Hall playing in an intramural game.
Wow, Doug, that North Dakota school is pretty special!