You haven't even set foot inside Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia for the hundredth playing of the Army-Navy game and already you're worn down by the media blitz about how this is still the greatest rivalry in all of sports. You have heard vast quantities about all the "tradition," all the "pageantry." But you also know it hasn't had national implications for years. So you're suspicious.

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Until you step inside and let the magic take over, chills and goose bumps and intimate thoughts of flag and country.  You feel it before kickoff when the midshipmen in their jaunty bridge coats and the cadets in their solemn dress grays march onto the field in formation. You feel it during the trill of the clarinets in the playing of the Army's "Fight, Fight, Fight" song. You feel it during the invocation when an army ranger wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. 

The 1999 game, before a crowd of 70,049 on a peerless blue day, was a plodding affair. Navy won 19 to 9. But it didn't matter: the hundredth contest between these two institutions was every bit as inspirational as the ones that have gone before. At the conclusion, officials from both schools walked with decency and mutual regard to midfield to shake hands. Then came the stirring playing of the alma maters of both schools. Senator John McCain, a 1958 graduate of Annapolis and a major football fan, stood on the field with his eyes closed as the  Navy band played. "It's just a nice kind of American thing," said McCain afterward of Army versus Navy, and he was right.

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