Plebes

Barbara Morris almost had it. Standing on the shoulders of her male classmates on a humid spring day in 1977, she clung to the top of a 21-foot obelisk coated with lard and reached to pull off the hat perched on the top. By lore, the Naval Academy plebe who replaces the "Dixie cup" cap worn by freshmen with a midshipman's hat will be the first to become an admiral. Morris was on the brink of a historic moment for the 81 who had just become the first women to make it through a year in Annapolis.

Amanda Kinsley and Daniel Singer woke up yesterday morning regular teen-agers, 18-year-olds with untucked shirts, rambunctious personalities and, well, hair.But while their friends set off on vacation fun, high school graduation fresh on their minds, these two Howard County teens stepped wide-eyed, silent and a little pale into the crowded lobby of the Naval Academy's Alumni Hall, into a strange new world.From 6 a.m., Kinsley and Singer, with 1,224 peers in the Naval Academy's incoming class, went through a six-hour metamorphosis that is the institution's legendary induction procedure.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a difficult freshman year for Jehiel Lewis.Lewis had to make the transition to Division I basketball, which meant playing sparingly for much of the season. He had to adjust to the academic rigors of college, which meant finding enough time to study.And there were the unexpected events that would have been hard for any freshman, and most upperclassmen, to handle. Badly bruising his collarbone was tough enough. Learning that his father, Ronald Lewis, had suffered a stroke was nearly too much.

Eighteen people downed by heat exhaustion. One broken toe. One case of hypothermia. One severe asthma attack. And nearly 1,000 caked in mud and sweat, trembling with exhaustion.That's how the Naval Academy measures success.Three days after its Sea Trials -- a new daylong endurance test for freshmen -- the academy said yesterday that the event had the desired effect: It forced weary midshipmen to work as teammates to survive a grueling 12 hours of push-ups, obstacle courses, relay races and more push-ups.

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 openers on this day, Howard Dignen asks most of his wide-eyed "customers" the same thing: Just a light trim, right? A little off the top?But the incoming freshmen at the Naval Academy have no choice. When Dignen and his fellow academy barbers are through, the customers are bald or nearly so.Dignen's tease is his way of adding a small dose of levity to an emotional day. "Most of them are scared," he said. "I try to put them at ease, loosen them up a little bit."For 20 years, thousands of newcomers to the Naval Academy have sat for two or three reflective minutes in Dignen's chair -- a kind of portal between their old and new lives.

Eighteen people downed by heat exhaustion. One broken toe. One case of hypothermia. One severe asthma attack. And nearly 1,000 caked in mud and sweat, trembling with exhaustion.That's how the Naval Academy measures success.Three days after its Sea Trials -- a new daylong endurance test for freshmen -- the academy said yesterday that the event had the desired effect: It forced weary midshipmen to work as teammates to survive a grueling 12 hours of push-ups, obstacle courses, relay races and more push-ups.

ANNAPOLIS -- Nimitz, Rickover, Farragut. The esteemed dead are alive on the campus of the U.S. Naval Academy. The buildings, playing fields, 75 monuments, benches, even trees honor Naval heroes and distinguished classes of midshipmen. Damn the torpedoes. I have not yet begun to fight. Don't give up the ship.Plebes, the freshmen of the Brigade, also face the CORE VALUES OF THE U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY: HONOR, COURAGE AND COMMITMENT. Posted in huge letters on classroom walls, the words bore into plebes.

What's in name? Celebrate NFL footballWhat's with all the griping about the Ravens? We've waited 12 years for an NFL team in Baltimore. What seemed impossible just a year ago is now reality.I'm not guilty about accepting the Ravens as our own; I don't feel victimized by PSLs and I don't care that the new stadium doesn't quite match up to the architectural standards of Camden Yards.What's important? In two months, we will once again field a team at Memorial Stadium.Season tickets don't work for me, but I plan to attend games whenever I can. Big-time football returns to Baltimore, and it's time to celebrate.

They had no strategy. They had no game plan. Just white balls of lard flying through the air as a group of sophomore midshipmen got down and dirty early yesterday to grease Herndon Monument for the annual rite of passage for plebes.By midafternoon, a slew of first-year midshipmen would writhe, slip and slide all over the 21-foot obelisk and each other to pluck a plebe's "Dixie cup" hat from the top and replace it with an upperclassmen's hat. It's been a tradition at the Naval Academy for as long as anyone can recall and it symbolizes the last obstacle the class will go through as freshmen.

Kathryn Boganowski and her daughter, Grace, made a pact six weeks ago when it was time to say goodbye: no tears. The truth was, both felt nervous and scared about Grace Boganowski's matriculation from Towson High School to plebe summer at the U.S. Naval Academy. But aside from some quivering of the lips, they refused to break down in front of one another that July morning. On Friday, Boganowski stood on her tip-toes, probing a long line of midshipmen - each ramrod straight and clad in pristine white - for any sign of her girl.

Wednesday in Annapolis, the United States Naval Academy welcomed the most racially and ethnically diverse class in its history: 14 percent Hispanic, 10 percent African-American - and perhaps 2 percent to 3 percent homosexual. I added that last part. No one knows how many plebes are gay or lesbian, but studies have placed the percentage of homosexual men and women serving this nation's military in that range, with some 65,000 said to be on active duty. It's a fairly safe assumption that a small percentage of plebes will have to keep their sexuality a secret if they want to graduate from the academy and, after that, fulfill their obligations to the country.

First-year midshipmen, or plebes, were allowed off campus yesterday, a break from rules that typically keep them in their dorms or at the library on Sundays, and classes today are canceled - all in recognition of the Naval Academy's thrilling football victory over the University of Notre Dame. Such reprieves come at a time when the academy has made headlines for cutting back on Mids' free time, canceling pep rallies and scaling back incentives for attending out-of-town football games. Then again, Saturday's game wasn't just another victory: The Navy football team snapped a 43-game losing streak against the Irish in a triple-overtime shootout in South Bend, Ind., defeating a down-on-its-luck Notre Dame squad and tilting one of the most lopsided rivalries in college sports.

Barbara Morris almost had it. Standing on the shoulders of her male classmates on a humid spring day in 1977, she clung to the top of a 21-foot obelisk coated with lard and reached to pull off the hat perched on the top. By lore, the Naval Academy plebe who replaces the "Dixie cup" cap worn by freshmen with a midshipman's hat will be the first to become an admiral. Morris was on the brink of a historic moment for the 81 who had just become the first women to make it through a year in Annapolis.

It was sunup yesterday when Naval Academy freshmen began the gauntlet of physical tests known as Sea Trials. And for 14 hours they came one after the other: races, tugs of war, rope climbing, swimming and boating, all over the Yard and on the banks of the Severn River. The event is considered the culmination of midshipmen's first year at the Annapolis academy. Obstacles are meant to challenge plebes in endurance, teamwork, problem-solving and teach leadership in times of stress. "If they go to war or go to sea, there will be days that last longer than this," academy spokeswoman Judy Campbell said.

When St. Mary's High School Principal Charles Reiter called the Carr home to offer condolences on Friday morning, all Ben Carr's sister Catherine could say through the tears and shock was, "He's perfect, he's perfect, he's perfect." His bright, broad smile. His love of life, of sports, of God and family and country. All of it was gone suddenly when the car he was riding in hours earlier careened off Glen Isle Road in Riva and hit a tree. Reiter was among more than 800 family members, friends and midshipmen who gathered yesterday at the Naval Academy Chapel to remember Charles "Ben" Carr IV, a 20-year-old junior from Edgewater.

More women were inducted into the Naval Academy's Class of 2010 Wednesday than in any previous class in the school's 161-year history. The 273 women also make up 22 percent of the 1,218 students who entered the academy, the highest percentage in school history and second among service academies only to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where women make up 28 percent of the student body. "In 1980, we admitted about 80 and in 1990, we did 136, and [now] we will have some 270," Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, the academy superintendent, said Tuesday.

More women were inducted into the Naval Academy's Class of 2010 Wednesday than in any previous class in the school's 161-year history. The 273 women also make up 22 percent of the 1,218 students who entered the academy, the highest percentage in school history and second among service academies only to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where women make up 28 percent of the student body. "In 1980, we admitted about 80 and in 1990, we did 136, and tomorrow, on induction day, we will have some 270," Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, the academy superintendent, said Tuesday.

The first crop of midshipmen to attend the Naval Academy in the wave of patriotism after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks graduated Friday, throwing their hats in the air and swearing an oath to the United States. Although the 161-year-old institution is well-known for its traditions and its propensity to stick to them, recent graduates said they went through many changes in four years as Mids, notably a far-reaching response to a rape scandal at the Air Force Academy and sweeping changes to prepare them for the war on terror.

The lowly plebes, caked in mud and sweat, jogged toward the "minefield" of cinder blocks, tires and sticks and began to holler wildly. Dressed in fatigues, some with painted faces and one sporting a freshly cut Mohawk, they'd already been warned to stop their whooping or face more "PT": more push-ups, more sit-ups, more leg lifts, more pain. Almost immediately and in unison, the 25th Company of plebes began, with respects to Walt Whitman, to "sound their barbaric yawps" in defiance. The minefield was only the latest challenge for about 1,000 Naval Academy freshmen, who awoke at 3:30 a.m. yesterday to begin "Sea Trials," one of many rites that mark their transition into fully respected midshipmen at the school.