Source: Politics<\/p>\n
The Navy\u2019s public image has been taking on water. And some of its most notable advocates have thrown a Hail Mary in the hope of bailing it out.<\/p>\n
The recent rumor<\/a> that the Washington Football team might be called \u201cThe Admirals\u201d came as a pleasant surprise to the small flotilla of retired officers who have not so quietly been pushing the rebranding.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Navy hasn\u2019t had the best couple of years in terms of some of the publicity,\u201d said retired Adm. James Stavridis, who has steered an online campaign<\/a>since July 2020 to rename the franchise the \u201cFighting Admirals.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt needs a little punch,\u201d the prolific former NATO commander, commentator and naval historian<\/a> added in an interview. \u201cThis could be a turning point for the Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n The team is expected to make a public announcement<\/a> on Feb. 2.<\/p>\n But does the Navy really want to moor itself to an NFL franchise that has been struggling on the field and that is constantly under fire?<\/a> After all, The Admirals can\u2019t pull rank<\/a> on team owner Dan Snyder, who isn’t exactly getting salutes<\/a> these days.<\/p>\n And not every sailor is so enthusiastic about The Admirals idea. Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chief of naval operations and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was unusually blunt: \u201cNot enthusiastic, especially with this owner, who I have no use for on any front,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI cringe at the headlines,\u201d said retired Rear Adm. Kendell Pease, who has a unique perspective as the Navy\u2019s former top spokesperson who also played for the Naval Academy football team.<\/p>\n The ESPN headline he fears most? \u201cThe Admirals are on a losing streak.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to hear that,\u201d Pease said. \u201cI was turned off by the idea when I heard it.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s apparently not a fan favorite,<\/a>either.<\/p>\n However, the Navy has a long history of embracing professional sports to help burnish its brand and grease recruiting efforts.<\/p>\n That\u2019s especially so with its own athletic standouts, such as Roger Staubach, who won the Heisman Trophy as the Navy\u2019s quarterback and went on to a Hall of Fame career for the Dallas Cowboys; or David Robinson, another academy midshipman and star center for the NBA\u2019s San Antonio Spurs, who was affectionately nicknamed \u201cThe Admiral.\u201d<\/p>\n The service went all out<\/a> with Navy football star Napoleon McCallum, depicting him dressed as Revolutionary War hero Captain John Paul Jones with the caption, “I have not yet begun to run.”<\/p>\n The self-promotion goes for the Navy\u2019s star turns in popular culture. The blockbuster action film Top Gun in 1986 was a boon for recruiting<\/a> (and the film\u2019s aerial coordinator<\/a> even went on to be a four-star admiral).<\/p>\n These days, the Navy\u2019s image looks a bit more like \u201cMcHale\u2019s Navy<\/a>,\u201d the 1960\u2019s sitcom about a bumbling crew during World War II that was ceaselessly plotting hair-brained money-making schemes and getting into trouble ashore.<\/p>\n Just look at the \u201cFat Leonard\u201d bribery scandal<\/a>, which torpedoed the careers of dozens of current and former Navy officers and is still playing out in court.<\/p>\n And if the Covid outbreak that sidelined the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt wasn\u2019t bad enough, the investigation dragged on for months after the acting Navy secretary fired the ship\u2019s captain for rebuking higher-ups before he was forced to resign himself for a less than stellar performance on deck.<\/a><\/p>\n The hits keep on coming. A fire set last year on the USS Bonhomme Richard burned for four days and injured at least 63 people; the billion-dollar ship was sold for scrap. Then the USS Connecticut, an elite nuclear attack submarine, struck an uncharted \u201cseamount\u201d in the South China Sea, forcing it to make an embarrassing week-long journey on the surface in full view to get repaired.<\/p>\n Not to run up the score, but it seems that every few months skippers get fired for everything from \u201closs of confidence\u201d to refusing to get vaccinated; the service ushered in the new year by firing five officers<\/a> in less than a month.<\/p>\n Their head coach was compelled to deliver a pep talk. \u201cYou are the example your team reflects,\u201d Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday wrote in a \u201ccharge of command\u201d<\/a> issued on Jan. 10. \u201cAlways do the right thing, especially when it is hard.\u201d<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the shiny new Space Force, which successfully got Congress to back down<\/a>on giving it naval ranks. And the sequel to Top Gun has been delayed three years (though it looks like it\u2019s finally coming out<\/a> in May).<\/p>\n It\u2019s especially painful for Navy fans to watch their beloved service\u2019s spit-shined profile rust, given its proud reputation<\/a> as a well-oiled public relations machine with its own dedicated cadre of career public affairs officers.<\/p>\n The Navy\u2019s top spokesperson, Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, says for now the service is officially staying out of the football debate, not wanting to appear to be choosing sides. If the rumors turn out to be true, however, there will undoubtedly be a lot more to say, he said.<\/p>\n To some of the Navy\u2019s most polished champions, The Admirals could be a real winner.<\/p>\n Stavridis says he\u2019s been a fan of the home team since he attended high school in Quantico. The \u201cFighting Admirals,\u201d of course, is a nod to the \u201cgreat World War II admirals \u2014 Nimitz, Halsey, Spruance, King, Leahy,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many ways, they won World War II in the Pacific, with all due respect to the other services,\u201d Stavridis said.<\/p>\n But could the spirits of the Fighting Admirals rub off on the Washington Football Team? Fellow supporters have their talking points prepared. One of them: The U.S. Navy (not its football team) has a good record on the road.<\/p>\n \u201cThe nation expects them to go away, win the game and come back,\u201d said retired Navy Rear Adm. Frank Thorp, another former chief of information who now runs the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington, which is dedicated to honoring the men and women of the sea services.<\/p>\n He thinks naming the team The Admirals would be a PR victory and is eager to help the franchise if it settles on \u201ctying the naval connection to our nation\u2019s capital.\u201d<\/p>\n Thorp points out that Snyder has been eyeing building a new stadium in Southeast Washington, possibly on the site of the team\u2019s old stomping grounds at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. It\u2019s only a few blocks from the Washington Navy Yard, the service\u2019s oldest shore facility where many battleships were once built (and current top admirals still live).<\/p>\n \u201cYou can obviously get underway from Washington Harbor and get out to the great Atlantic,\u201d noted Stavridis, who also wrote a book<\/a> about the history of sea power.<\/p>\n He\u2019s got the perfect name for the new stadium: \u201cThe Battleship.\u201d<\/p>\n The football team does appear to be thinking in naval terms. Other new names reportedly in the mix<\/a> include The Armada and The Commanders. It\u2019s also reportedly considering The Brigade and The Defenders.<\/p>\n \u201cThey could certainly come up with a worse name and they probably will,\u201d said Bill Harlow, another former Navy flak (and CIA spin master) who helped Stavridis set up the \u201cFighting Admirals\u201d website.<\/p>\n But some of the brass is lining up on the opposing side.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually was hoping they\u2019d keep the Washington Football Team,\u201d said Mullen, calling the current name \u201cunique\u201d and \u201cdifferent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be much better if they called them \u2018the sailors,\u2019\u201d Pease said. \u201cAnybody less than an admiral is not going to get all excited about it. Just as long as they don\u2019t call them the drunken sailors.\u201d<\/p>\n Some who wore the uniform of the other branches are already prepared to engage in some healthy post-game ribbing on Monday mornings if the franchise fully embraces the sea service.<\/p>\n For one, winning on the road just isn\u2019t going to cut it, Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general who is now director of the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation. \u201cIs that really that good if you always lose at home?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Spoehr, who said he\u2019s just about given up on his hometown team, also said he\u2019s scratching his head a bit at all the claims of the Navy\u2019s ties to Washington.<\/p>\n \u201cD.C. is not big naval town, like Baltimore or Charleston,\u201d he said. \u201cThe harbors or ports are shallow.\u201d<\/p>\n What the real admirals all agree on, though, is that any \u201csalty\u201d name would be better than \u201cThe Generals.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe losingest team in the history of sports are The Generals,\u201d Stavridis said of the Washington exhibition basketball team, \u201cthat sad sack club that has to play the Harlem Globetrotters<\/a> every night.\u201d<\/p>\n The Navy has at least one big NFL booster in the coach with the most Super Bowl wins, the New England Patriots\u2019 Bill Belichick. He, too, is a self-described \u201cNavy guy\u201d and would rather<\/a>be an admiral than a general.<\/p>\n And it’s worth remembering that McHale\u2019s Navy, that fictional crew that was always in hot water, also never lost a battle.<\/p>\n