On a day in which my class, the West Point Class of 1995, gave a record $2.5M to the U.S. Military Academy’s Margin of Excellence programs as part of our 30th Reunion celebration, we as a class learned once again that sheer money can buy neither happiness nor success. At the end of the day, the connections we make as West Pointers remain the most important and profound part of our collective Academy experiences.
As a class, we trekked down to the stadium, handed over a MONSTER check, and then got directly into the Way Back Machine to experience a deja vu of athletic mediocrity that reminded us all too strongly of the football we saw as cadets back in the early 1990s. This was the talk of the reunion after the game. But at least we got to do it together.
Final: Army 25, Tulsa 26
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 22, 2025
As plebes in 1991, we watched Army Football go 4-7. As yearlings in 1992, we watched them go 5-6. As cows in 1993, the team finished with a winning record at 6-5. As firsties, we capped our experience with another 4-7 finish. In all of those years, my classmates and I remembered consistently good starts in games after which the team often struggled to finish. However, in three of those years, they at least rallied to beat Navy in the one game that truly mattered back in the day.
Is any of that important now?
We had a class memorial service as our reunion’s first official event on Friday morning. We’ve buried eighteen classmates. Three died in combat. Three* died in a car crash while we were still cadets. A few have taken their own lives as all too many former soldiers do these days. Others passed in the ways that men and women pass when we get into our fifties. Throughout the service, and indeed, throughout the rest of the weekend, we got constant reminders of the importance of re-establishing and maintaining those singular connections that have kept us together as a group for 34+ years, since July 1, 1991. Life is just too short and too precious, and in many cases, our classmates are all the family that we have, save perhaps for our spouses and our kids.
In this sense, a simple football game could never be the most important part of this weekend. In fact, at AFF we’ve often argued that the actual football is rarely the most important part of Army Football overall. Coming to the stadium, reconnecting with friends and with the Academy itself… no amount of bad football can take that away. AFF’s mission might be to improve your Army Sports fandom, but our secret sauce has always existed in the reality that the games themselves aren’t actually the important part. Our connection as a community, that’s what makes this thing go.
With this in mind, friends, realize that you can wallow in this weekend’s loss if you want. It was a bad loss. One of the worst in the Monken Era. But a certain amount of pain has always been baked into your Army Football fandom. It’s literally part of the haze.
Anybody can be an Alabama fan. It takes actual courage to root for Army.
Your heart is gonna get broken. We know this.
At the reunion, most folks seemed to think that the Black Knights lost yesterday on three specific plays. They went for it on fourth down twice and got stuffed, once instead of attempting a field goal and once instead of punting. They also threw into double-coverage once, resulting in the season’s worst, most costly interception.
Sure, those three plays turned disastrous. But guys, teams don’t lose games on just three plays. They lose because they struggle to tackle and wind up allowing an opposing running back to go off for 203 yards on a whopping 7.3 yards/carry. They lose because after putting together the best, most explosive half of offensive football of the entire season, they get a little too conservative and quit pushing the envelope, so that by the time they realize they’re in trouble, it’s too late and they’ve become desperate. Up eleven mid-third quarter, they needed to keep using their weapons, keep throwing downfield, and keep the pressure on. Instead, they tried to run their four-minute offense for, like, twenty-five minutes of game-time.
In the first half yesterday, Army ran for 178 yards on just under 6 yards/carry. They looked unstoppable. QB Cale Hellums also went 2/3 passing for 48 yards, keeping Tulsa’s defense honest. With that, the Black Knights put up 13 first downs in that half of football, and they then ran for another 50 yards on their first drive of the second half while converting another 6 first downs. All of that looked great. Afterwards, though, they struggled to gain literally another yard and didn’t make any more first downs — at all — throughout the end of the game.
What can you do? That was never gonna get it done.
Quick strike from Army 🫡
— Army Football (@ArmyWP_Football) November 22, 2025
Two plays. Touchdown.
📺 @CBSSportsNet pic.twitter.com/KC6lhXN1mo
As fans, we don’t block or tackle or catch or kick. We give money, and we cheer. That’s what we can do. When the team wins, we don’t win. Not really. And when they lose, we don’t actually lose, either. In both cases, we’re just watching helplessly from the sidelines. Thus, the most important thing we can do is to reach out to our community and grip hands. Life is too short and too precious to allow any other approach.
Army Football is not now and never has been about football. It’s not even about the Army. It’s about the bonds we’ve forged with each other through service. It’s about coming together to re-establish those singular connections throughout lifetimes that we should be living together. The world at large may never understand. That’s okay. We ourselves do need to remember, though.
Reach out. Catch up or commiserate. Use this loss as a reason to be there for the people who need you. It was easy for me because I was in the stands with the best people I’ve known in my entire life. But I promise you, a few of our friends took this one really, really hard.
You can be there for them. You should be.
Go Army! Beat UTSA!!!
* This article originally stated that we’d had just one classmate die via car wreck as cadets. That was not correct.
