Beginning at 5 o'clock this morning, a new rite is being shoehorned onto the list of rituals that define a year at the Naval Academy.
It's called Sea Trials, a pretty title for 12 hours of sweating and grunting that academy freshmen -- called plebes -- must withstand today.
For the first time, the academy is seeking to create a final hurdle for plebes to jump before they are no longer considered pond scum.
"Plebe" means, basically, lowlife. Sea Trials is intended as passage from the depths of plebe life, which requires a subservient attitude and endless menial chores. For example, plebes must trot through dormitory halls and pivot sharply around corners. It's called "chopping."
That and other annoying freshman restrictions will ease for the plebes after today.
The academy kept details of the new ritual secret, even from plebes. Outsiders will not be allowed to watch today's events. But this week, the academy described to reporters what 1,000 plebes face today. It will not be pretty.
Plebes will be roused at 5 a.m., fed a quick breakfast and told to fill their pockets and packs with granola bars and fruit, because there will be no lunch.
They'll be sent to three testing sites, where they will be thrown into grueling tests of physical endurance and mental proficiency. Obstacle courses, relay races, log hauling, tugs of war, swimming, boating and a lot of push-ups will fill their day. Their minds will be made weary with tests of military and academy history and trivia.
Each test, like successive body blows, will be followed by another. By day's end, the plebes will have run at least 15 miles, some of it through rivers, mud and swamps.
"Sea Trials is meant to be a defining moment in plebe year," said Michael Wisecup, a senior midshipman from Indianapolis who headed a committee of midshipmen that devised it.
For a century and a half, plebes have still been lowlife plebes at year's end.
F: Adm. Charles R. Larson, the academy superintendent, an
nounced last fall his intention to create a new year-end experience for plebes -- a punctuation mark, but one coming about a month before graduation. That way, plebes could enjoy a brief period of allegiance with the upperclassmen who -- in academy tradition -- have tormented them most of the year.
The details of that punctuation mark were left to the midshipmen. They spent months creating a daylong event modeled after similar tests of endurance recently introduced in the Marine Corps and the Navy (called the Crucible and Battle Stations, respectively).
Though the plebes have been buzzing about the Sea Trials for weeks, they have been told only to expect to be kept busy for 12 hours. "They don't know what happens in between," Wisecup said. "We've done a pretty good job keeping it quiet."
Todd Fowler, a senior midshipman from San Diego, said the goal of every test is to get groups of eight to 10 plebes -- called squads -- to work together.
"Actually, there's no real time when the midshipmen get together and all do one thing," he said, explaining how sports and extracurricular activities fragment the student body. "With this, there's no excuses. Every single person, unless they have a broken bone, will participate."
The day is expected to end with a final run by the entire class, followed by a pizza party at 7 p.m. Until then, said Fowler, "they have to rely on each other."
Pub Date: 4/18/98
