Goat-Engineer

Goat - Engineer Football Game

Rememberances from the Engineer-Goat Football Game 28 November 1963

This is a collection of faded memories of our life as cadets prior to the Army-Navy game in December 1963 where Army unfortunately lost for the third year in a row. Was the class of 1965 destined to be a class that never saw Army beat Navy?

Here is a photo taken at the Goat-Engineer Football Game. Left to right Step Tyner, Dan Benton, Alex Alexander. I’m not sure what Alex was doing in this photo since he was a major Hive … probably was trying to haul away the sliderule. I was the Equipment Manager for the Goat Team. My main memories are the truly lousy weather we had for all the training sessions leading up to and including the game itself. Cold, wet, cloudy … good training for future FTXs.
Dan Benton

Click for large version

The Question That Triggered the Memory

    Bob Doughty is testing my recall again. His question is whether the goat engineer football game was played in 1963, the year JFK was assassinated. The geme is part of Army Navy week, so it stands to reason that it was canceled since they almost canceled the Army Navy game that year, but I don't recall for sure.
    At first I was thinking that it was the cows who played the game, in which case that would have been our year to play. I played on the great Engineer team our year; so I was thinking it must have been played in 1953, but then I checked and found out that it's the firsties who play the game; so we would have played it in 1964.
    Any recollections? As I recall the Engineers won our year, but that might have been selective recall as well.
Gordy Larson

Fred Smith and his Touchdown

The Engineers had a strategy to strike quickly with long passes. I think the Q-back was Harry Joyner.
I know that I was the left end and caught two long passes in our first set of downs including a touchdown. Good start to the day.
I was also the punter on the Engineers' Team. On our first punt, I kicked a great punt with my right foot. My left leg was fully extended when a Goat Classmate made the knee articulate EAST/WEST instead of the normal and designed NORTH/SOUTH. I was carried off the field and this nice orthopedic surgeon, MAJ (DR.) Ballard who was watching the game, came down to give my knee a once over. He told me that he would see me the next day and that I should cancel my Army Navy plans because surgery would start around 1000 Hours.

And so it was. He tightened the badly torn ligaments in the left knee (nice smiley 4" scar because arthroscopic surgery wasn't invented yet).
I had a full leg cast covering the foot and used crutches for a month, followed by a full leg cast for another month, followed by a few months of Physical Therapy. Because it was the Thanksgiving Weekend, I didn't even miss a day of Class.
Reading these recollections has been fun. I could not remember who won or lost, but now I know. I will never forget that game.
Attached are two pictures I was able to find (click picture for large version):
The first is before the game proudly standing on the steps of the 42nd Division
The second is myself en route to the first touchdown

Johnny Wells Remembers

I was on the Goat team. Can't remember what year it was but the Goats won -- no thanks to me. For some reason I've never understood, I started at linebacker. Or maybe it was safety. Maybe it was because I was one of the very few who made it to every practice(?) but I was not because I knew anything about playing football. At any rate, as the game began, I was the guy standing around watching the Engineer receivers catch passes. Fortunately, I was soon replaced by Ron Layer who was a good football player and took care of business. But then, for the second half, the "starters" were put in again ... and the Engineers completed a few more passes before Ron got back in.

James Olivo has his own view

Larry you are close, we "the goats" won our firstie year, which allowed us to finally beat Navy that year, as the tradition so goes, Goats win, Army beats Navy. The coach was Billy Joe Chance. If I recall, we had lost to Navy the 3 prior years and we did not want to be a class recognized for never seeing a Navy loss..Our COW year was the crazy goal line fiasco when we all stood around thinking we had a time out, but the officials said the game is over.

Bob Frank has a fuzzy memory

I know I played in the Goat-Engineer game, some time just before Thanksgiving, I think. But, I cannot remember which year. Funny thing, Gordy, there is no evidence of that game in our Class's Howitzer (at least none that I could find). Another question arises: is the tradition still alive?

Step Tyner was CiC (he thinks)

Believe it or don't, I was the C-i-C (or at least I think I was), and don't remember a bloody thing about it except that it was cold and I dragooned Mike Abbot and members of the Cadet band (or, at least, instrumentalists who hung out in Bldg. 720) into doing the halftime entertainment. And entertaining it was, Mike having borrowed the USMA Band drum major's shako and sash, which he wore over B-robe and thermal underwear. Nobody's lips froze to any mouthpieces, and Mike managed not to kill anyone with the baton, either -- it was that heavy-duty model the drum major carried, which is probably why there were reported sightings of Mike on some barracks rooftop in the weeks before the game, doggedly flinging his M-1 skyward and attempting to catch it without injury.

Gordy Larson does some research

    If my internet sources are accurate, the tradition is alive and well with some updates to reflect changing conditions. The men play the traditional Goat Engineer football game,8 men to a side; and the women play a flag football game on the same day.
    As I recall, when we played the engineers were from the upper third and the goats from the bottom third of the class. These days, it's upper half versus lower half. Back in our day, we played the game on the soccer field, but the 2010 games were played in Michie Stadium with the Engineers winning. The article cited below suggests that the crieria have changed over time, anywhere from top half vs bottom half to top 100 vs bottom 100.
    The following web page is a WP official description of the game and its history:
    http://www.drsm.org/WPPC/GOAT-_Engineer_Game.pdf
    Interesting to note that there were once three different games played by plebes, yearlings, and cows: Runts vs Flankers, Corporals vs Privates, and Goats vs Engineers with only the G-E game surviving to modern day. Supposedly the other two games disappeared because of changes to the corps, but that would not have been the case in our day. We still had runts and flankers our plebe year and corporals and privates our yearling year. Those games must have disappeared for other reasons prior to our time.
    According to this source the original G-E game was played by the cows, not the firsties, which is what I remember for our class. The game was played on Thanksgiving Day, which is when I thought we played as well. It makes sense, since we couldn't go anywhere that day and it was a day off from classes, etc. These days the game is played during Army Navy week.
    Other sources I consulted say that the game is now played by the firsties, but given the nature of traditions at WP, it seems unlikely that the cows would have surrendered that honor to firsties, especially since it would have meant that one of the classes would have played the game twice.
    So, if the game was played by cows per the tradition, we would have been the class that played in 1963.
     Gordy

Roger Frydrychowski settles when we played

Thanks to Johnny, I was reminded that I have OUR G/E program. Duh! I will scan now and send. "Thanksgiving Day 28 November 1963 1000 hrs Clinton Field." Rosters and songs included. Stand by while I kick start the copying thing.
Roger

Do you have anything else to add? Send your remarks to Chuck Nichols at cnichols6@verizon.net.