Goliath Braces for David, Part 24

St. John's College student Ian Hanover, left, and his Naval Academy rivals practice last week for today's croquet match. (By Michael Williamson -- The Washington Post)

The Johnnies also field a designated temptress, held in reserve for desperate moments, whose job it is to saunter over to the midshipmen with a winning smile and a tray of drinks. The mids, for their part, perennially vow to remain sober throughout the five-game match; they sometimes keep that pledge well into the second game.

The tradition began with a St. John's freshman named Kevin Heyburn. Leafing through old yearbooks in 1982, he found that the college had played Navy frequently in lacrosse and baseball in the early 1900s. St. John's had even beaten Navy a few times, although the last such occasion was in 1913, in baseball.

Returning from an Army-Navy football game one fall day that fall, Heyburn found himself walking behind Adm. Leon A. "Bud" Edney, the Academy commandant. Heyburn told the admiral what he'd read. Edney replied, "I wouldn't challenge us to any sport now."

Heyburn said he remembered there were some croquet sets at the college library, left there to encourage play on the front lawn. "So I thought, what about a croquet match?" This also gave Heyburn, the croquet correspondent at the college newspaper, something to write about.

The president of the St. John's student government issued a formal letter of challenge to the commandant. Edney passed it on to Mark Hagerott, a senior on his staff, who put up a note for volunteers. Out of 4,000 midshipmen, he got barely enough responses to field a team. The first match was in 1983.

"It was a little bit going out on a ledge to put together a Naval Academy croquet team," said Hagerott, a Rhodes scholar who was captain of the first Navy team. "In fact, there were some who thought it was something that midshipmen didn't do."

But academy leadership saw an opportunity. Not many years had passed since the Vietnam-era protests, a time when Johnnies were jeering at the midshipmen as they marched through town.

The early matches were played by inebriated amateurs on cheap backyard equipment. "I think we practiced once," Hagerott recalled. "The main thing was to show up."

Navy captured the cup in two of the first five years. Then the Johnnies established dominance, winning all but one of the next 13 tournaments.

A turning point came in 2001. That year, with their new coach and mallets that didn't break, the mids routed the overconfident St. John's players, who had downed gallons of beer, champagne and cocktails served up by the match mixologist. Since then, St. John's has won three times; Navy, once.

A scrimmage between the two teams last week brought a taste of what fans can expect at today's game at 1 p.m., rain or shine: arcane and unintelligible outbursts from players ("Are you dead on me?"), a cooler full of Budweiser and Red Stripe and lots of people staring intently at the grass.