The Rivalry by John Feinstein Page A

held his breath as Goodes got to about the 3-yardline and tried to dive at the corner of the end zone. But at least three Army defenders were right in front of him. He struggled forward for an instant and then collapsed under a pile of black shirts, still a yard from the goal line.
    Stevie heard a cannon go off somewhere and saw Kelly, Taylor, and Hall jump into a three-man hug. The entire Army team left the bench to celebrate. Stevie noticed something else: the Army defenders who had tackled Goodes had not gone into celebration mode right away. Instead, they reached down and helped him to his feet. Handshakes and hugs were exchanged.
    Kelleher had a huge smile on his face. “You understand,” he yelled over the screams and shouts cascading down on them, “that there is NO way this team should beat a team with Georgia Tech’s talent. These kids do this stuff on guts and heart.”
    As Kelleher talked, Stevie saw the Army players, having celebrated and then shaken the hands of the Georgia Tech players, walking back in their direction. The Tech players, he noticed, were right behind them.
    “What’s this?” he asked.
    “Just watch,” Kelleher said.
    The Army players lined up in neat rows, facing the corps of cadets. The Tech players stood directly behind them.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the playing of the Army alma mater,” the public address announcer said.
    Stevie noticed the Army players come to attention, asdid the entire corps. After the song everyone yelled, “Beat Navy!”
    Kelleher explained. “Army, Navy, and Air Force all play their alma maters after each game. When they play each other, the losing team goes first, then they cross the field and do it for the winning team. You see guys who have been trying to kill one another for three hours crying on each other’s shoulders.
    “Paul Johnson was at Navy, so he understands the tradition. That’s why his guys stayed. It doesn’t always happen that way.”
    “Cool,” Stevie said.
    Hall was right behind them. “Come on, hustle up,” he said. “You don’t want to miss the song.”
    “The song?” Stevie said. “They just played the song.”
    Hall shook his head. “That was the alma mater. After we win, the players sing the song. You really need to hear it.”
    Hall wasn’t kidding. As soon as the players had piled into the locker room, still hugging one another joyously, Ellerson jumped on a chair and called for silence, which he got very quickly.
    “I don’t need to tell
you
what a great win that was,” he said. “I’m not sure there’s a game in which you earned the right to sing the song more than this one. So, let’s do it!”
    With that, the entire team began singing the Army fight song, belting it out in a way that even Stevie recognized was way off-key, but it didn’t matter. Stevie hadbeen in winning locker rooms after the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Final Four. And he’d never seen a group of athletes happier than the Army players.
    He and Kelleher lingered for a while. Hall introduced them to Ellerson just before the coach left for his postgame press conference.
    “That was a great call on the last play,” Stevie said as they shook hands.
    Ellerson waved him off. “Against that offense they can
tell
you what they’re going to do and it’s still hard to stop,” he said. “The kids just made a great play.”
    Stevie liked him right away. So many coaches loved taking bows after wins. Clearly, Ellerson wasn’t like that.
    Hall also took Stevie around the room so he could meet some of the players, explaining to them that Stevie was going to be around a fair bit in the next couple of weeks prior to the Navy game.
    “I know who you are,” Mario Hill said. “I read all about you and your partner, Susan Carol, right? In my newspaper back home.”
    “Where are you from?” Stevie asked, then felt embarrassed because he could easily have checked it in the media guide.
    “Goldsboro, North Carolina,” Hill