Game Days Mandatory?

G

Galwaygal

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May 11, 2022
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Hello all,
Looking for some enlightenment here. We planned on visiting our plebe on the weekend of October 1st, however after looking through the academic calendar I see that there is an away game, Navy v Air Force in Colorado on that weekend. Read that it is mandatory for plebes to attend home games. Does anyone know if the same applies for away games? Just cannot imagine all Mids having to fly out for same.
 
Galwaygal said:
Hello all,
Looking for some enlightenment here. We planned on visiting our plebe on the weekend of October 1st, however after looking through the academic calendar I see that there is an away game, Navy v Air Force in Colorado on that weekend. Read that it is mandatory for plebes to attend home games. Does anyone know if the same applies for away games? Just cannot imagine all Mids having to fly out for same.
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Your instincts are correct for this game. Only some Mids will fly out for the Navy-AF game. The Navy team could use some support though. Navy hasn't won in Colorado Springs in a long, long while. Provided all things are going well with your plebe, (grades, no restriction, etc) plan on having a nice fall weekend in Annapolis. It's beautiful that time of the year.
 
Midshipmen can sign up for the “movement order” to go to away games. Your plebe will eventually be able to explain how that works.

I always recommend letting your plebe pick the best weekend to visit. They have to look at the duty schedule, what’s coming up academically the next week, how much academic work they think they might have on a given weekend, etc. In this case, they won’t really know that for first semester until PS is over and they are in their academic year companies. Whatever you do, let your travel plans be flexible, and if air travel is involved, book fully refundable tickets or the kind that can be re-scheduled without penalty. Plebe year is filled with unpredictable demands on their time. Your plebe will soon become savvy about telling you best times to visit.

Pro tip: On long holiday weekends, plebes have town liberty (can leave Yard) on both the Saturday and Sunday when there is a Monday holiday, and they don’t have other obligations. It’s not usually overnight, unless they have earned one somehow. On a regular weekend, they can only leave the Yard on Saturday.

Be fully prepared for your plebe to say incomprehensible things such as “I promised to stay on the Yard a couple of extra hours on Saturday and work with the other plebes in my company on our boards that are due on Sunday afternoon.” (Plebes must complete elaborate large bulletin board assignments in their companies, developing teamwork and prioritization skills.).

Arm yourself with flexibility and a good listening ear for what your plebe thinks will work best, and you can have an enjoyable visit that gives the plebe a much-needed break. Be open to tagalong friends too!
 
Capt MJ said:
Midshipmen can sign up for the “movement order” to go to away games. Your plebe will eventually be able to explain how that works.
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I'm curious -- probably a question for current Midshipmen - Are Midshipmen ever voluntold they have to attend away games, i.e. whole company assigned to movement order so there is a sizeable , cohesive presence instead of just random Midshipman attending. I suspect that its unlikely for the average away game, but some of the high visibility games like Air Force and overseas Notre Dame ? ( Of course, Army-Navy is always mandatory unless otherwise engaged).
 
Old Navy BGO said:
I'm curious -- probably a question for current Midshipmen - Are Midshipmen ever voluntold they have to attend away games, i.e. whole company assigned to movement order so there is a sizeable , cohesive presence instead of just random Midshipman attending. I suspect that its unlikely for the average away game, but some of the high visibility games like Air Force and overseas Notre Dame ? ( Of course, Army-Navy is always mandatory unless otherwise engaged).
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Football is always volunteers from what I remember. In cases where as many mids volunteer as they want, Ops will often increase the amount of MWF money going toward reimbursing the mids for their flights. Once in a while for something like volleyball or lacrosse I think I can remember some mids being forced to bus to the game.
 
Old Navy BGO said:
I'm curious -- probably a question for current Midshipmen - Are Midshipmen ever voluntold they have to attend away games, i.e. whole company assigned to movement order so there is a sizeable , cohesive presence instead of just random Midshipman attending. I suspect that its unlikely for the average away game, but some of the high visibility games like Air Force and overseas Notre Dame ? ( Of course, Army-Navy is always mandatory unless otherwise engaged).
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Yes, they voluntold a lot of mids attend the Orioles game in Baltimore last spring because they needed so many in attendance. There was also the Army-Navy soccer game last year.

I think it was a litttle easier to encourage people to attend games towards the end of the year when they developed the spirit pass system which allowed more liberty such as Sundays for plebes or weekday liberty for upperclassmen.
 
tweety_bird said:
they developed the spirit pass system which allowed more liberty such as Sundays for plebes or weekday liberty for upperclassmen.
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Do Plebes still have to attend one sporting event in the Yard each weekend ? Are ship visits mandatory ?

Back in the day, we had to attend and report on one sporting event each weekend, as well as any ship visits. Rarely saw any significant number of Upperclass at a sporting event (except for Football of course). Those types of things (including other Plebe commitments like Bulletin Boards (as CAPT MJ noted) or Sheet Posters (are those a thing still ?), and marching tours (still at thing ?) took time away from available liberty.
 
Old Navy BGO said:
Do Plebes still have to attend one sporting event in the Yard each weekend ? Are ship visits mandatory ?

Back in the day, we had to attend and report on one sporting event each weekend, as well as any ship visits. Rarely saw any significant number of Upperclass at a sporting event (except for Football of course). Those types of things (including other Plebe commitments like Bulletin Boards (as CAPT MJ noted) or Sheet Posters (are those a thing still ?), and marching tours (still at thing ?) took time away from available liberty.
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Attending one sporting event each week is still in Midregs, but we plebes were surprised last fall to find out that none of the upperclassmen had done that themselves or even knew it was a rule, so I am not sure how long ago that tradition was discontinued. I am not sure what ship visits are, so that seems to also have been discontinued somewhere along the line!

The spirit passes definitely encouraged more midshipmen of all classes to attend more sporting events last spring, and I think there was probably more spirit involved because no one was forced to attend. We definitely still have to hand paint the bulletin boards, but we use rolls of paper instead of some poor plebe's set of sheets.

We typically didn't march tours unless on restriction, or if our training staff decided to use them as a form of punishment in the evenings. There were a few times throughout the year when we used the training period at 1900 for an hour of marching around the company area, a sand baby beat down on hospital point, or some rifle PT, but it wasn't a routine thing.
 
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Colorado is too far …

Local …Notre Dame/NAVY is November, and The A-N game is December …
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Old Navy BGO said:
I'm curious -- probably a question for current Midshipmen - Are Midshipmen ever voluntold they have to attend away games, i.e. whole company assigned to movement order so there is a sizeable , cohesive presence instead of just random Midshipman attending. I suspect that its unlikely for the average away game, but some of the high visibility games like Air Force and overseas Notre Dame ? ( Of course, Army-Navy is always mandatory unless otherwise engaged).
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No one has gone anywhere *football wise* (other than army navy) for the last two years. So that’s a really good question I’m not sure even current Mids can answer 😂😂
 
tweety_bird said:
I am not sure what ship visits are, so that seems to also have been discontinued somewhere along the line!
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Ships visits were visits by Navy ships to the Yard. Smaller (shallower draft) LST, PHM's, could tie up to the seawall, and were usually pretty quick visits. The larger ships were anchored out in the Bay a way , and had to take the ships or NavSta motor whaleboat out.

I'm guessing Ships visits were curtailed due to security concerns, or we simply don't have (close to) 600 ships anymore.

Sheet posters were a big time sink -- this involved sewing alot (at least 4 x 4, and perhaps 8 x8 --the bigger the better !) of sheets together, painting them, and hanging them over T-Court during football weekends. The penultimate sheet poster was the hanging a big "Go Navy" over the Hollywood sign for the 1983 A-N game in Pasadena,
 
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NAVY pre-season football event is on Saturday August 13th at 10:00am at the Stadium

Complimentary “Barbecue Feast” for Level 1 and above Blue-n-Gold members starts at 12noon at Stadium too.

Has anyone been to the Noontime barbecue before?

If there’s good food … I might tag along down there with DW …
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Dr. Strange Love said:
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NAVY pre-season football event is on Saturday August 13th at 10:00am at the Stadium

Complimentary “Barbecue Feast” for Level 1 and above Blue-n-Gold members starts at 12noon at Stadium too.

Has anyone been to the Noontime barbecue before?

If there’s good food … I might tag along down there with DW …
.
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That’s also parents weekend.

We will be there for another reason, but had a hard time finding a room!!
 
I’d also highly encourage to take the opportunities to travel on movement orders, where and when applicable…particularly to visit USAFA or USMA…it’s great to talk to the cadets, get their perspectives, see their campus/base and maybe make a friend or two. When you look at USAFA…that opportunity will only happen probably twice and USMA maybe a handful between sports and other events.
 
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