Navy’s football team will charge onto its home field Saturday to face Air Force, and many (but not all) of the other academy athletic events, which appeared destined to be casualties of the government shutdown, will go on as scheduled. (Associated Press photo)
After the Naval Academy rescheduled a soccer game this week and the Air Force Academy announced it wouldn’t travel to Annapolis for this weekend’s big Navy-Air Force football game, it looked like the government shutdown had completely cast its shadow over service academy athletics.
However, the Naval Academy announced late Wednesday that the game against Air Force and would go on.
At the time, it was the only athletic contest that remained on Navy’s shutdown-shortened schedule, but the school announced Friday that some games were back on the docket. Even the women’s soccer game at American University, which had been called off, is back on, set for rescheduled for Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. See the link for the full upcoming schedule; the school says the club-sports slate is still being adjusted.
As for the Air Force Academy, the latest updates to their athletics website says that beyond this weekend’s football game, all intercollegiate sports events are cancelled until further notice.
West Point’s football team will play at Boston College on Saturday at 1 p.m., as scheduled. According to goARMYsports.com, all other events not previously canceled will go on as scheduled.
Meanwhile, according to Stars and Stripes, the Armed Forces Network won’t be broadcasting any of this weekend’s professional sports events. The channel has pared down to news-only during the shutdown.
