Mark White

Jon Gruden won a Super Bowl and spent 15 years as an NFL head coach. On Saturday he went to his first Navy football game. He called it the greatest football experience of his life. Here is what he actually wrote. "I spent Saturday at the United States Naval Academy and it was the greatest football experience of my life!" "My first time at Navy did not disappoint." He filmed the whole day and put it out. Now here is what he was looking at. The Naval Academy sits in Annapolis, Maryland, where the Severn River meets the Chesapeake Bay. It was founded in 1845. About 1,200 freshmen start there every summer. About 1,000 graduate. Every one of them owes the country active duty service when they are done. They come out as ensigns in the Navy or second lieutenants in the Marine Corps. The football players go through all of it with everybody else. Same rooms, same inspections, same summer training. Now the game day. Before kickoff the Brigade of Midshipmen marches onto the field. More than 4,000 of them, in 36 companies, and every company commander gets announced by name. Two F/A-18 Super Hornets come over the top. Then the Brigade spells out N-A-V-Y on both sides of the stadium and goes to its seats. There are two live goats on the sideline. One of them is named Bill the 36th. The Drum and Bugle Corps plays the formal parts of the day. Every time Navy scores, the freshmen drop and do push-ups for the whole running total. There is almost no music between plays. The stadium is a memorial. It is named for the Navy and the Marine Corps, and it honors the people who served in them. When it is over, nobody leaves. Everybody stands and sings Navy Blue and Gold, and the other team usually stays and listens. That is what Gruden walked into. And then Navy went out and fell behind Tulsa 26 to 14 early in the third quarter. They scored the last 20 points of the game and won it 34 to 26, in front of 30,963 people. Jackson Gutierrez, a junior quarterback, ran for 232 yards, which is the most he has ever had. He scored three times on the ground and threw for another one. Navy also put the ball on the ground three times and threw an interception. So here is the first thing Gutierrez said when it was finished. "I've got to play better; I can't be so loose with the ball." Four touchdowns, 232 yards, a comeback win, and the first thing out of his mouth is what he did wrong. Jon Gruden has coached in a Super Bowl and won one. He says Saturday was the best football day of his life.