Gala splits right down the middle

Army / Navy

Check List for Party:

800 black and gold napkins

800 blue and gold napkins

80 black and gold centerpieces.

80 blue and gold centerpieces

80 pennants saying: Go Army!

80 pennants saying: Go Navy!

1 wide line down center of room

Those are the things that ran through Michael Gervais' mind late yesterday as he scanned the main room at the Baltimore Convention Center. Gervais works for John Marks Associates, an event-planning firm, and this is a big event - the Army-Navy Gala, the dinner-and-dancing gathering with a fraternity-party tone held each year on the night before The Game.

No need to say what game.

Two 28-foot inflatable footballs greeted partygoers as they paraded along a red carpet and into the convention hall. Once inside, though, the stream of guests parted: Half turned left and marched straight for the Army's registration table; half turned right and marched straight for the Navy's registration table. One by one, each guest made his or her allegiance known.

Earlier in the day, decorators accidentally hung the Army banner on the Navy side of the ballroom. The mistake was quickly corrected but ... Gervais shuddered: "It could have been war!"

All in good fun, of course.

"I am here for duty, honor and country," said Staff Sgt. Michael Astroth, who traveled to Baltimore from West Point.

"And Army victory."

"I'm here to see Navy win," said Richard Duncan, senior chaplain for the Naval Academy who moments earlier had led a prayer service for the football players on his side.

The atmosphere was a mix of black-tie formality and sports-arena hoopla. Marching bands of both stripes vied for attention by playing as loudly as possible. Female cheerleaders, frequently tossed into the air by their male counterparts, whooped and hollered as a woolly white goat (Navy's mascot) and a grinning mule (Army's mascot) danced in the lobby. The menu included grilled swordfish and steak followed by chocolate bourbon torte. The bars were near the goal posts.

The key to successfully planning a party for 1,600 participants of perhaps the most-famous football rivalry, it seems, is even-handedness. Inside the ballroom, where party hosts, CBS sports announcers Vern Lundquist and Todd Blackledge, made introductions and 1963 Heisman Trophy winner, Navy alum and former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach met fans, everything was even-steven.

To the left, the tables were decorated with centerpieces made of plastic cheerleading megaphones in Army gold and black. On the right, the tables were adorned with centerpieces made of plastic cheerleading megaphones in Navy gold and blue. On the left, the wall was aglow with the motto: "Go Army Beat Navy." On the right, you guessed it, the wall had written upon it: "Go Navy Beat Army."

"Equal time, equal space," said Edie Brown, co-chairwoman of the event. "Equal. Equal. Equal."

Former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig was in attendance. He was at the game in 1944 - the last time the Army-Navy game was played in Baltimore - as well. "We came by offshore military transport and came into the harbor and went to the old stadium," he said. "We had to march through the city. Fortunately it was a nice day."

And there was Tucker Hite, a financial planner from Severna Park and a 1988 graduate of the Naval Academy, who came with 40-odd of his friends to celebrate and to see the game. "All of us go to the games and have season tickets. We wouldn't miss it," he said.

"This is a great event. It's really about camaraderie."

Perhaps so, but the rivalry still simmers.

For Carol Richardson, who has come to Baltimore from Highland, N.Y., with her husband, a major in the Army reserves, the competition is a family tradition. Just last week, her father built a replica of the battleship on which he served while in the Navy and parked it in his son-in-law's front yard.

Then he called the newspaper.

Little wonder, then, that someone wrote "Go Army" in bright orange spray on his lawn.