Army football is a huge deal here at West Point. Attendance in the student section is mandatory for all cadets. We stand and cheer for the entire game, with the exception of a brief sitting break during halftime. It is actually a super fun atmosphere with all the things that cadets do to keep it exciting. Every time Army scores, the Plebes(Freshman) do however many push-ups our total score now is. This builds up pretty quickly and you get a lot of push-ups in some games.
Pre-game taskings are also a big part of football weekends for cadets. Of the 4,000 cadets that make up the Corps, half march in a parade in the morning, a quarter march onto the field just before the game starts to do cheers and the National Anthem, and the additional quarter help with security and scanning tickets. There is a rotation for who does what every week and this week I got tasked to help with security. I got to show up to the game 4 hours early to learn how to use security wands and make sure people didn’t go around security points. It was a fun experience and the Military Police we were helping were cool about answering questions we had but it meant that I stood for about 8 straight hours yesterday, so as soon as the game finished, I took a nap. 😀