“Nifty.”
Dean ignored my sarcasm. “We take turns being the home team, and when we’re the away team, we march on first. At the end of the game, we each sing our school’s alma mater, but the team who loses sings first. So we want to be the ones to sing second. We even sew a little piece of cloth into our uniforms that readswe sing second.”
“That’s cute.”
He shook his head. “Do you know about the rocket?”
“What rocket? Like a space thing?”
“No. It’s . . . I guess it’s sort of like a cheer. Either one of the cheer squad or someone important like the Supe stands in front of the corps of cadets and leads them.”
“Seriously? And they all do it?”
“Of course.” Dean glanced around the room. “Hold on a second.” Standing up, he pulled out his chair and jumped onto it, then whistled shrilly. The whole place fell silent.
Once he knew he had their attention, Dean slowly raised both arms into the air while whistling. Suddenly, all of the cadets present—mostly football players and team support—and many of the coaches had jumped to their feet, too, and were imitating what he was doing.
Then they all yelled BOOM as they brought their arms down, following along with Dean, who was apparently leading them through this thing.
Ah!
USMA rah rah
USMA rah rah
HOO rah
HOO rah
Ar-may RAH!
Team! Team! Team!
Whoooo!!
The entire room erupted in cheers. Dean climbed down from the chair wearing a grin that could only be described as smug.
“That, my dear, was a rocket.”
I nodded. “Color me duly impressed. Seriously. That was pretty cool.”
“Yeah, I think so.” He winked at me. “Now do you understand the importance—dare I say it, the reverence—of this contest?”
“I’m beginning to see the light.”
“Great.” Dean replaced his napkin onto his lap and began to slice into his steak. “Then my job here is . . .” He turned his head to look at me, his gaze steady. “Not done. No, not done yet. But it’s begun.”
Across the room, someone shouted, “GO ARMY!”
Dean joined the rest of the crowd in reply.
“BEAT NAVY!”
And the next day, we did.
I cheered and shouted until I was hoarse.
I did two rockets, one led by the superintendent and the other by my father.
