VIRGINIA BEACH, VA (WTKR) — Just outside the Shorebreak Pizza and Taphouse in Virginia Beach flies a flag for the Navy Midshipmen.
Tomorrow, like it has the last few years the restaurant will turn into a base for Navy alums to watch the game they wait all season for; the 123rd edition of the Army-Navy game.
"It gives us a chance to fellowship with them, to meet new faces," said former Midshipmen running back Shun White. "To come watch the game, cheer Navy on, because we're all here for one purpose, to beat Army."
It's also a chance for former players to reunite, whether they're active duty or moved on to a new phase of life. With Hampton Roads being home to the world's largest naval station, there's no shortage of stories and past memories.
"What we established is a brotherhood," said former Navy cornerback Shalimar Brazier. "It's something you really wouldn't think about while you're playing, but after you graduate you realize you have friends for life.
"It can be years later, ten years later, you still have that tie because you're going to cross them somewhere in the fleet," LaVaughn Kelley, who played defensive back as well, said. "I don't even call them my friends, they're my family."
They all have different ways to describe the game and the memories are quick to come back.
"That one day, for a snapshot in time, you are fighting your family," said former Navy offensive lineman Derek Peterson. "Soon as that fight's over, you're back together, back working, back to camaraderie."
"My senior year, Rashawn King, one of my classmates who played, his father passed away the week we played Army," White remembered. "We dedicated that game to him and his family, and I'm pretty sure we beat Army 34-0."
It's what the game still represents, however, that brings them together.
"It transcends past the game," Kelley said. You're playing the sport, but we do know down the line when we graduate, they're going to be our brothers in arms. At the end when we're singing that song and we're together on each other's sidelines singing alma maters, that bond never leaves."
Army and Navy kick off on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
