Suspects abound in case of stolen trophy
By Gene WojciechowskiYou don't exactly have to be NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (played so convincingly by former UCLA quarterback Mark Harmon) to know who stole the now-recovered -- whew! -- Commander-In-Chief's Trophy from the Navy locker room.
Some hints: It wasn't Ocean's 11. It wasn't Thomas Crown. And no matter what Gibbs and his Naval Criminal Investigative Service team might say, it wasn't anyone from West Point.
The Commander-In-Chief's Trophy, which is presented annually to the service academy football program with the most wins against its peers (Army, Navy, Air Force), was heisted Monday evening. A taunting note was left by the thief or thieves. It read: "Before we win the football game on Saturday, we thought we would take the trophy. By the time you read this, it will be halfway to West Point."
Campus police were alerted and the usual suspects were questioned. In this case, it was the 15 or so exchange students from Army who are spending a semester at Annapolis (the exchange program takes place at all three academies). The exchange students denied any knowledge of the caper.
Of course, had police wanted some real answers, they would have secured the services of the Marines who man the Naval Academy gate. Remember what those dudes at Annapolis did to the guy chasing Harrison Ford/Dr. Jack Ryan in Patriot Games?
Anyway, it wasn't the exchange students. So that means it had to be some West Pointers who made their way to Annapolis, talked their way onto Academy grounds, sneaked into the locker room, grabbed the Trophy, left a note, and hauled the hardware, unseen, to a storage room in the Bancroft Hall dormitory, right?
The big break in the case came Wednesday night at about 7:30, when officials received an anonymous tip on the Trophy's whereabouts.
"I was just glad they found it," said Scott Strasemeier, Naval Academy assistant athletic director. "I'm glad it wasn't in Jersey being melted down, or something like that."
At last check, the Trophy was locked in a Capt. Greg Cooper's office, and the captain will personally oversee its delivery to Philadelphia for Saturday's big game.
"In the future, we probably won't be putting it in the locker room anymore," said Strasemeier, who added that the theft of the Trophy, as well as the mocking note, has infuriated the Midshipmen players.
Of course, it has. Wouldn't you be steamed? The problem is, I think the Cadets have been framed.
"All I can tell you is our people at West Point had no knowledge of what happened to the Trophy," said Army Senior Associate Athletic Director Bob Beretta. "Whoever did that, they need to go into Special Ops. I don't know, it sounds like it might be an inside job there."
Exactly.
Florida State had its two national championship crystal footballs stolen from its trophy case in June 2004. A $2,500 was offered, but nothing. FSU officials had to order another pair of footballs, at $7,500 apiece, from Waterford Crystal. Now that's an actual heist. No cutsie note. No nothing.
"We'd given up the ghost," says FSU assistant athletic director Rob Wilson.
But earlier last month police received a tip on the locations of the missing footballs. Arrests were made (two Florida grads, by the way) and the footballs recovered. The Waterford collection now sits in a sealed trophy case with a monitored camera system aimed at the program's crown jewels.
Wilson offered some suggestions for Naval Academy investigators.
"First of all, start with the names of people on the other team," he said. "Second of all, whoever ended up with [the Trophy], immediately admit them into espionage school. They'd be good candidates for Navy SEALs or Rangers.
"And whoever was on duty [in the Navy locker room], maybe they ought to look for a job in a food-related industry."
I'm with Wilson on Suggestions No. 1 and No. 3. Otherwise, this whole caper is smellier than Dwight Freeney's underarms. If this were Clue, I'd say it was Mr. Navy, in the locker room, with a dolly.
"I think you're 100 percent right," says Troy Garnhart, an assistant athletic director at the Air Force Academy.
When the Zoomies used to win the Trophy on a regular basis, it wasn't entirely uncommon for the hardware to disappear from the locker room the week of a game against Army or Navy. A note would be left, something to the effect, "We took the Trophy, now what are you going to do about it?"
Nobody could ever prove it, but Air Force Academy officials always thought the school's facilities manager had done the deed -- just to psyche up the players.
"He never came totally clean," said Garnhart.
Of course, one time the Trophy was actually stolen from a trophy case in the concourse of the basketball arena (the case was damaged). Two days later the Trophy was left outside the football offices.
Still, this latest job sounds like Navy is channeling the Air Force facilities manager. After all, you just don't tuck a 170-pound trophy under your arm and run. This required multiple thieves or something on wheels.
"I've tried lifting it up before," says former Navy coach Charlie Weatherbie, whose Louisiana-Monroe team tied for its first Sun Belt Conference championship. "You can budge it. But it'd take two or three people to carry it."
Weatherbie was part of an Air Force staff that won the Trophy multiple times, but he never claimed ownership during his coaching tenure at Navy. He knows how much Saturday's game means to both sides.
"As soon as your freshman class shows up, if you're at the Naval Academy, it's 'Beat Army,' in anything you do," said Weatherbie, who considers the game must-see TV. "At Army, it's 'Beat Navy.' ... When they graduate, they'll say, 'I'm so-and-so, Class of whatever, and I beat Army three out of four years I was here,' or, 'I beat Navy two out of three years I was here.' That sort of thing. It means a ton."
So I asked Weatherbie, would he put it past Navy to "steal" their own Trophy for motivational purposes?
"Yeah, that's a good ploy," he said. "That's probably a good idea."
Ah ha! Case solved.
"You never know," said Navy's Strasemeier. "It could have been a hell of a ploy by a Midshipman."
Pause. "But we're blaming Army, though."
Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at gene.wojciechowski@espn3.com.
