In some ways it's downright irresponsible to be writing about football at the Naval Academy -- a hot topic again in the light of our football player rape trials -- when right down the road in D.C. the administration is fighting for its credibility in the wake of Bob Woodward's “State of Denial.” Woodward's blockbuster, excerpted in the Washington Post and discussed on every talk show in the country, argues that everybody in the political inner circle knew Iraq was a mistake and did it anyway. Iraq is more important than football, yet the ways both are playing out reveal a common leadership style. It's a bad one: belligerence rather than rational argument -- shouting down those who raise questions rather than answering the objections. Next week, Woodward. This week, football.

For it's “Rape Trials, Round Two” here in the pleasantly autumnal sun of Annapolis. This time the man in the dock isn't the quarterback, but another of last year's players, since graduated. The incident allegedly included five other football players. The incident allegedly included the use of a “date-rape drug,” GHB, illegal in this country, used as an anesthetic in others.

Now the papers are asking, “What's up with this football team stuff?” Do they have a sense of entitlement that leads this kind of behavior to be more prevalent on the football team than on other teams? Than elsewhere off teams? Allied with these questioners are those who assert that the Academy, and the military in general, still doesn't do enough to protect females.

This “unwanted attention,” as the Annapolis Capital called it, has caused the coaches and supporters to push back. The head coach, Paul Johnson, “stoutly asserted that there was no link between the … cases and the football program,” as reporter Earl Kelly put it for the Capital . “Both defendants were no longer playing at the time of their alleged wrongdoing, Mr. Johnson said, and therefore were not football players. Also, [the current case] was a walk-on and the program did not recruit him.” Coach Johnson then went on to predict “that another military jury will acquit” the current defendant of all charges. “I'll bet my salary on it,” he added to the Capital.

This kind of thing makes those out to protect female midshipmen see red. It seems like the old boy thing all over again. Besides, it seems like the old “circle the wagons” play the military, and teams, are so good at. They didn't have a ball in their hands in the bedroom either, did they? Are they any less football players? They're recruited when they're 17. Can we read their character then? Do we try? And the shouting match heats up.

It heated up a bit more than a year ago too when I published an article noting the lengths to which the Academy has to go to recruit and keep a Division I football team. Apparently this was something the outside world wasn't supposed to know, a blot on the reputation of the Academy as a training camp for the best and brightest. The Superintendent went on CNN, where he re-cast my position as having said that athletics had no purpose at USNA. Academics aren't the only thing that matters, he assured the reporter. But who said they were? Not Prof. Fleming. This was clearly a “choose your sides” kind of situation, and it made rationality go out the window.

So just for the heck of it, instead of giving in to our basest instincts to screech at each other, let's try and be rational. Some things are objective fact. Such as that football is given an institutionalized position of power at the Academy that no other sport, no other extra-curricular activity, has. Essentially, it's part of the curriculum. Midshipmen have to go to football games or suffer demerits (frying) -- this is true of no other sport. (They also get fried for missing class, or formation, or many other things.) Furious cheering at games by a specific company leads to that company getting points towards being chosen color (flag) company. The Brigade marches in formation through the streets of Annapolis to football games, as they do to no other sort of sport. They have to be there hours before the game and walk back afterwards, so a home game eats up most of a Saturday -- a huge hit during fall semester at this time-challenged institution. Football pep rallies (and no other kind) are scheduled for the Brigade -- recently we profs got an e-mail telling us not to mark students late to class who'd been at the pep rallies. Students are excused on Fridays before away games to cheer.

It's also a fact that a huge proportion of the football team is recruited, a much higher proportion than, say, track or sailing. As I've noted, athletic recruits (“blue-chips”) typically have predictors (SAT scores, grades) much lower than our minimum requirements. They are guaranteed seats for which, as a result, several much higher-performing all-around candidates (yes, athletes too -- not just geeks) have to be rejected. Typically they're sent at taxpayer expense to the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, ostensibly to fix up their academic deficiencies. I have my doubts it does this based on twenty years of teaching its products. In fact, as many people admit to me privately, the real point is to let them lift for a year and get huge, as well as a year older.

Every time a plebe squares a corner in Bancroft Hall and yells a “motivational” “Beat Army, Sir” that plebe is talking about football. The equally acceptable “Go Navy, Ma'am” is arguably more generic. In fact we all know it too refers to the December football fight of the Army-Navy Game.

Let's ask, in an objective spirit, “Why have we institutionalized football to this extent?” At this football supporters snort and bluster. Anybody can see what the benefit of football is! No. Tell me.

The best reasons I've heard are: football teaches men to endure pain -- football encourages hard-chargers. Certainly both of those are good things in a military school. Fine. More pain than a track guy finishing a marathon? More hard-charging than the swimmer who forces herself to push past her limits? Why so much emphasis on football, as opposed to all athletics?

Gosh, Prof, do we have to spell it out? The alumni just like football. The players are big guys; everybody likes big guys. It makes a fun Saturday: all that noise, all that testosterone, and yes, the cheering midshipmen all in white, looking so spiffy. Makes you feel young, you know?

Well, that's perhaps the perspective of the alumni. What I see is broken down young men old before their time, who sit in my office and massage their “blown out” knees. Are we really in the business of throwing Christians to the lions so the Romans can have a nice time at the stadium?

And I fail to see how any of it makes better officers -- certainly not the injuries. Besides, who are you going to knock down on a ship? Not even Marine infantry wants that kind of build. Every year we have football players (who are allowed to be fatter than the height-weight limits) who have to cut weight to graduate.

We hear: it brings in money, you know. Yes, but it only goes to the football or varsity program. That's circular. We hear: it gives us national visibility. More than just being the U.S. Naval Academy? I don't think we want that kind of visibility.

We hear: it takes all kinds of midshipmen. Really? We want bank robbers? That's a kind too. And we don't recruit violinists. No. We want a specific kind, a well-rounded student-athlete Renaissance man and woman.

I don't think the reasons for football, as opposed to athleticism, hold up under rational scrutiny. Which perhaps is why those who defend the current institutionalization of football always end up yelling.

My dream is fielding every team with walk-ons. Our students are athletic. We could staff our teams...