Home
Bill Vilona: Shutdown ruins joy of football
For Air Force and Navy’s football teams, Saturday had promised to be an unforgettable setting.
A record number of tickets were sold for Saturday’s game in Annapolis. The game has a late-morning kickoff (10:30 a.m.) on national television with CBS Sports airing it.
A grand pregame ceremony is scheduled featuring Roger Staubach and honoring Navy’s 50-year anniversary of its Cotton Bowl trip with Staubach at quarterback.
Staubach, the 1963 Heisman Trophy winner, was stationed for two years (1967-68) at Pensacola Naval Air Station, playing for the Goshawks and serving as a Supply Corps officer.
Sadly, however, the game may not be played. The setting may be empty.
The federal government shutdown has weaved its way into sports. You knew it would. It had to happen. The Army at Boston College game Saturday also is in jeopardy.
Maybe a popular college football game will get the attention of Congress. Something needs to light a firecracker under these buffoons.
While football pales in comparison to the hardship of 800,000-plus federal employees losing income, the shutdown of museums, national parks and all the other issues created by petty politics, it’s shedding additional light on the crisis.
It’s hardly in the same category. But it’s still a big deal.
The Navy-Air Force game was part of the chase for the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy that Navy won last year. Air Force had the trophy the previous two years.
It’s not what the service academies are about, of course, but it means a lot.
It means a lot to the officers, the graduates, college football fans in general.
“At this stage, we’re taking it basically a half a day at a time, holding our breath that they can bring it to resolution,” Navy Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk said in an interview with The Washington Post.
“The game on Saturday, I mean it’s a huge issue. The stage is set for one of the most significant event statements we’ve had in a long time, so the timing couldn’t be worse.”
There is some time. Navy has said it can wait until noon Thursday before canceling the game. By then, maybe sanity will prevail.
Gladchuk, who has visited Pensacola to speak to the local base of Naval Academy graduates and supporters, told The Washington Post, “We’re hopeful again that the government can bring resolution to their issues, and we can move forward.”
Move forward. Oh, how that has proven so elusive in Washington.
This is how politics can cause such far-reaching harm.
The players for all three service academies are not there to play football or any of the athletic programs. But the men and women have such a passion for their sport.
It adds to the whole experience of being trained to become a military officer.
All the sports are affected. Navy canceled its men’s soccer game Tuesday night. Everything is shut down in athletics at the academies.
And it hurts everybody. For no reason. Just like all the workers, all the families, all the people so affected by this shutdown.
Just stop it.