The 1887 Navy Midshipmen football team represented the

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...

during the

1887 college football season The 1887 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Yale as having been selected national champions. In the West, the 1887 Michigan Wolverines football team compiled a ...

. The team compiled a 3–1 record and outscored its opponents 41 to 22. The Midshipmen shut out their first three opponents, including an 8–0 victory in the seventh installment of the

Johns Hopkins–Navy football rivalry The Johns Hopkins–Navy football rivalry was an American intercollegiate football rivalry between the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays football team of Johns Hopkins University and the Navy Midshipmen football team of the United States Naval Academy ...

. The Johns Hopkins game was played at the Academy grounds in

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

, and was described by ''

The Sun (New York) ''The Sun'' was a New York newspaper published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper, like the city's two more successful broadsheets, ''The New York Times'' and the '' New York Herald Tribune''. The Sun was the first successf ...

'' as "a veritable slugging match" and "one of the roughest games of football" ever seen there. In the final game of the 1887 season, the Midshipmen lost to the

Princeton Tigers The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in m ...

"B" team in the final game of the season. The team captain was George Hayward.

Prelude

The Naval Academy's football program formally began in 1879 with a game against the Baltimore Athletic Club. The program went on a two-year hiatus in 1880 and 1881 due to a lack of support, before it was brought back by

Vaulx Carter Vaulx Carter (August 14, 1863 – before 1930) was an American college football player and engineer who is best remembered as the first coach of the Navy Midshipmen football program. He was born in Tennessee and raised there for part of his chil ...

. Bealle (1951), pp. 8–9 Clary (1997), pp. 10–11

Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...

was Navy's primary opponent during the 1880s; the annual contest between the programs made up the entirety of the academy's 1882 through 1884 seasons. Clary (1997), p. 13

Schedule

Players

The 1887 Naval Academy football team was made up of twelve players at six unique positions. The squad consisted of five rushers, two ends, one snapback, one fullbacks, two halfbacks, and one quarterbacks. Four of the players (both halfbacks, the fullback, and a rusher) had played the previous season. Bealle (1951), p. 14 The age of the players ranged several years due to the academy's admission policy; the school allowed for men between the ages of 14 and 18 to be admitted, which future player John B. Patton remarked made it "just a

boys' school Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education and gender-isolated education, is the practice of conducting education with male and female students attending separate classes, perhaps in separate buildings or schools. The practice of ...

". Schoor (1967), p. 5 Rushers * Carlo Brittain * Ashley Robertson * Sam Robinson * Monty Taylor *

Curtis D. Wilbur Curtis Dwight Wilbur (May 10, 1867 – September 8, 1954) was an American lawyer, California state judge, 43rd United States Secretary of the Navy and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Ear ...

Ends End, END, Ending, or variation, may refer to: End *In mathematics: **End (category theory) **End (topology) **End (graph theory) ** End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous) **End (endomorphism) *In sports and games **End (gridiron football) ...

* Buell Franklin * George Gibbs Curtis Dwight Wilbur

Snapback * George Fermier Halfbacks * George Hayward (capt.) * John Patton Full-backs * Lou Anderson

Quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

s * Jim Fearne

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * * {{Navy Midshipmen football navbox

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

Navy Midshipmen football seasons

Navy Midshipmen football The Navy Midshipmen football team represents the United States Naval Academy in NCAA Division I FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) college football. The Naval Academy completed its final season as an FBS independent school (not in a conference) i ...