Despite the one-sided result the last few decades, most Notre Dame and Navy fans consider the series a sacred tradition for historical reasons. Both schools have strong football traditions going back to the beginnings of the sport. Notre Dame, like many colleges, faced severe financial difficulties during World War II. The US Navy made Notre Dame a training center and paid enough for usage of the facilities to keep the University afloat. Notre Dame has since extended an open invitation for Navy to play the Fighting Irish in football and considers the game annual repayment on a debt of honor. The series is marked by mutual respect, as evidenced by each team standing at attention during the playing of the other’s alma mater after the game, a tradition that started in 2005. Navy’s athletic director, on renewing the series through 2016, remarked “…it is of great interest to our collective national audience of Fighting Irish fans, Naval Academy alumni, and the Navy family at large.”[7] The series is scheduled to continue indefinitely; renewals are a mere formality.[7]
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Interesting.
I can tell you that Notre Dame has an absolutely POWERHOUSE ROTC program on campus. In Army ROTC, ND’s unit won the yearly regional “Ranger Challlenge” team competition every year in our region when I was in college.
This graduate of ND Army ROTC ranks as one of the top two General Officers I ever worked with/for during my military career, the other being Ray Odierno.
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ARMY just means Ain’t Really Marines Yet.
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Ooorah!
MARINE is an acronym for “Muscles Are Required Intelligence Not Essential.”
j/k