President John F. Kennedy was a Navy man who combined his loyalty to the branch and his love of football into a sincere affection for the Naval Academy football team. Connelly, a writer for the Boston Herald, builds on that presidential fandom to construct an emotional history that culminates in the Army-Navy game that took place shortly after the president’s assassination. He conducted first person interviews with many of the surviving participants of the game and adroitly weaves in the national and international issues of the day. Though there is too much game-by-game description, it helps to define the athletic context in which the Army-Navy game was played. Today the game is important because it’s symbolic; service-academy football is usually irrelevant on the national sports stage. In 1963, Navy was one of the very best teams in the country, and Army was also a major player. With even Kennedy’s assassination gradually fading into history as just another national tragedy, Connelly’s reframing of the event in terms of a very specific context manages to capture the anguish of a nation in a new and surprisingly compelling way. --Wes Lukowsky
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