CROQUET NEWS:  A Test of Minds and Mallets

22 April 2008
St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
by Eric Kroh in Medill Reports, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

The St. John's College (right) and Naval Academy (left) croquet teams met for the 26th time to compete for the Annapolis cup.

The annual croquet match between St. John's College and the Naval Academy in Annapolis provided the perfect occasion to contemplate the age-old question: Who makes better croquet players, philosophers or warriors?

The match has been played between the two schools every year since 1983. It draws a crowd of several thousand, who drink champagne and eat cucumber sandwiches on St. John’s front lawn while feigning interest in the matches and occasionally letting out enthusiastic whoops.

With rain threatening to ruin play Sunday, St. John’s eked out its 21st victory in the series, winning three games out of five. The Naval Academy has won in five years of the 26 the two teams have played.

It may sound like farce but the two schools take the match seriously, striving for the coveted Annapolis Cup that goes to the victor. It is the only athletic competition between the two schools, which are geographically adjacent but separated by an ideological chasm.

St. John’s College is a tiny liberal arts school with an enrollment of about 400 students. They study a mandated great books curriculum sampling the canon of Western philosophy, science, math and literature. By contrast, the Naval Academy Midshipmen train for elite careers as officers in the Navy or Marine Corps.

Why has St. John’s won the vast majority of contests between the two schools? Senior Charlie Fleming, a veteran player, said the St. John’s curriculum encourages spontaneity of thought which leads to more creative play on the croquet field compared with the Naval Academy team’s conservative style.

In croquet, teams attempt to hit their own balls through a course of wickets, or hoops, before the other team does the same.

The answer, though, may be simpler.

“Honestly, I think one huge advantage is the amount of time that we play. We just play a lot more than they do,” Fleming added.

St. John’s students have hours of unstructured time in which to improve their croquet games. The Mids, on the other hand, have precious few hours between drills and other responsibilities to hone their skills.

Carlson said the Naval Academy team had practiced maybe 15 to 20 times all year, for about an hour or two each time. “We’re going out as often as we can between parades and homework and capstones.”

The brand of croquet played by Navy and St. John's is not the one played in grandparents’ backyards. Teams use expensive professional equipment and develop sophisticated strategies to whack their balls through every wicket, or hoop, before the other team does the same. Traditions have grown around the event, and the two teams spend most of the year preparing for it.

The Naval Academy team arrives every year wearing their whites and cardigans emblazoned with a yellow N. The St. John’s team wears premeditated outfits whose nature is not revealed until minutes before the matches begin. This year, the Johnnies were wearing mock naval uniforms. If you squinted, you would almost take them for Mids, except with substantial beards and bare feet.

Midshipman First Class Bryan Carlson, of Downington, Pa., is the imperial wicket, or captain, of the Naval Academy team this year. Before the match, Carlson was confident the day would belong to the Mids. His team, which is always drawn from the school’s 28th company, had been practicing for weeks under the supervision of Anne Morris.

Morris has coached the Mids for seven years, and is a serious croquet competitor herself, as well as the collegiate chairman of the United States Croquet Association.

Carlson, the captain, described his team’s strategy as “go out there, have fun, make sure you make fewer mistakes than the Johnnies. Never surrender until the two balls hit the stake.”

Carlson said winning was important, but that the competition was a friendly one, befitting two schools that follow separate doctrines, but acknowledge the need for the other.

Carlson, who is studying naval architecture, takes classes that include advanced marine vehicles and naval weapons and systems. Fleming, on the other hand, was busy reading Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and had just finished his senior thesis on Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

Fleming, who is from Kansas City, was on the St. John's team that took the first match of the day. With the Naval Academy closing fast, Fleming knocked his partner’s ball and then his own into the final stake, winning the match, before rushing into the outstretched arms of supporters.

“This year croquet was the closest” of the three years Fleming has played, he said. “Because of the rain in the morning and semi-cancellation of the match that happened, there was more of a casual feel to it," he said.