A chill wind drifts across the Naval Academy yard, carrying the sounds of warriors in training: grunts from the football players, guttural orders and the snap of rifle stocks from the drill team, the click of wooden balls from the croquet squad.
Croquet?
You may think of croquet as the pastime of the tea-and-scone set, but members of the Naval Academy's team see it as Clausewitz on a manicured lawn. Had the Prussian military tactician been a devotee of the game, his classic work might have been entitled "On War -- Through The Wickets."
"It's a lot like chess. There's a lot of strategy involved," said Midshipman 1st Class John "J. J." Phelan, the team captain, as he paused last week on the practice field, a patch of grass behind Bancroft Hall. "You always have to think about the next shot."
Suddenly, team member James Golladay -- who won a medal as a Navy enlisted man during the Panama invasion -- watched as his ball missed the wicket. He tightened his grip on his mallet, shut his eyes and leaned back with a grimace. The medal "doesn't make me a better croquet player," the Silver Spring resident said a few moments later.
"If you could see the playbooks I have -- they're more complicated than the football plays," said Michael Charrier, Navy's head coach.
The 10-member squad has a better record than the football team. The team is the defending national champion, and in April, two Navy seniors defeated Yale to take the collegiate honors with the United States Croquet Association.
"One of the Yale players stuffed in a wicket, in other words shot and it didn't go through all the way; it bounced off," explained Mr. Charrier, who also is chairman of the association's collegiate division. "Which gave Navy the chance to hit him and make three additional wickets to win."
In croquet, two-member teams assemble on a grass court that measures 84 feet by 104 feet. Using an English-made hardwood mallet, they hit 1-pound wooden balls at a center stake and through six wickets shaped like inverted U's, which have only an eight-inch clearance for the ball.
Players try to be the first around the court, scoring points offensively by passing through the wickets and defensively by striking an opponent's ball, an act known as "roquet." Players then are allowed to knock the opponent's ball out of position -- called "croquet" -- before taking another shot.
