MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So we just got through March Madness. How about April Mallets? The Annapolis Cup is the biggest croquet contest in the United States. And every year, it pits St. John's College, known as the Great Books school, against its neighbor and seeming polar opposite - the U.S. Naval Academy. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports from Annapolis, Maryland.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: So there are three matches going on simultaneously on this big green lawn surrounded by redbrick Georgian buildings here at the St. John's College campus.
(CHEERING)
LANGFITT: Whoa.
(CHEERING)
LANGFITT: And the Navy team - they're dressed in white cardigans and black bow ties. The St. John's team are wearing homemade green tunics covered with blades of fake grass that resemble a croquet lawn.
(CHEERING)
LANGFITT: In croquet, players use a wooden mallet to knock balls through a course of metal hoops - or wickets. St. John's Steven Kendall provides play-by-play - describes a long-range shot by a fellow teammate.
STEVEN KENDALL: Isaac has managed to go from wicket two to wicket three and then taken a shot - sort of a Hail Mary shot, as it were - from wicket three to center.
LANGFITT: How far is that? How many feet?
KENDALL: I want to say it's about 25 feet.
LANGFITT: That's a long way in a sport where players usually aim for a wicket from no more than 5 feet away. If this all sounds confusing, you're not alone. Many in the audience say they can't follow the action, either, which is fine because the Annapolis Cup is about more than croquet. Part of the appeal is a contest between such different institutions. Students at St. John's, known as Johnnies - they study writings from some of the world's greatest thinkers, from Aristotle to James Baldwin. Navy's Midshipmen, known as Middies, focus on subjects like electrical engineering and submarine warfare.
SHAUN CALLAHAN: My name is Shaun Callahan (ph), Naval Academy class of 1985. And I was the captain of the inaugural team back in 1983.
LANGFITT: Callahan says when the tradition began, people compared the Annapolis Cup to a contest between ancient Athens and Sparta.
CALLAHAN: The Spartans are the gladiators, and it's might makes right and it's force and it's war. Whereas Athens was the philosophical nature of, how do we figure out mathematics and how people think?
LANGFITT: Beyond the competition, this is a sprawling lawn party that draws thousands to kick off spring in this former British colonial city along the Chesapeake Bay.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUMPETS PLAYING)
LANGFITT: There's a Navy mariachi band knocking out a Frankie Valli tune.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing) I love you, baby, and if it's quite all right, I need you, baby.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRASS BAND PLAYING)
LANGFITT: Later, men in boaters and bow ties dance with women in sundresses to a jazz band in a scene that could be out of the Great Gatsby. The Annapolis Cup began more than four decades ago, after a St. John's freshman challenged Navy in hopes of creating an old-fashioned college rivalry. But St. John's croquet club was not really prepared. John Ertle, the team captain, remembers.
JOHN ERTLE: The croquet club at that time was an excuse to get $50 to buy beer from the college every year.
LANGFITT: Shaun Callahan, Navy's croquet captain - he recalls how quickly that changed.
CALLAHAN: When we accepted the challenge, they all of a sudden got motivated. They were like, we're going to take down these big, giant jocks. And they wiped the floor with us.
LANGFITT: Decades later, the Annapolis Cup is an institution. El'ad Nichols-Kaufman is covering today's match for the St. John's newspaper.
EL'AD NICHOLS-KAUFMAN: I think it's a really lovely place for two very different schools to come together and realize we're not so different after all. We're nerdy in our own ways. We're, you know, very interested in the careful tactics of croquet. And we like to come together as a community.
(CHEERING)
LANGFITT: After about five hours of croquet, Navy pulled off the upset. Afterwards, both teams gathered on the pitch and sang traditional school songs.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) But who has better right than we...
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in non-English language).
LANGFITT: It was Navy's ninth win to St. John's 32nd - which, of course, is not what this event is really about.
Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Annapolis.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in non-English language). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
