The nation’s Commander-in-Chief will again take in the pomp and pageantry and history of one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports this weekend.
Saturday, Army will face Navy in Philadelphia in the 108th renewal of the rivalry. Tuesday, the White House confirmed to the Associated Press that President Donald Trump will be in attendance at the game, the first time a sitting President has taken in the game in seven years.
Trump attended the 2016 game as President-elect, but this will be his first game as the sitting POTUS. It’s expected Trump will follow tradition and sit on the Army side of the field for the first half, the Navy side the second.
Trump will be the 10th sitting President to attend the Army-Navy game, with Theodore Roosevelt serving as the first back in 1901. President Barack Obama attended the rivalry game once during his two-term presidency, in 2011. His predecessor, George W. Bush, attended games in 2001, 2004 and 2008.
Those who never attended the game, first played in 1890, includes Lyndon Johnson, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Dwight Eisenhower. Carter was a graduate of the Naval Academy, while Eisenhower, then a West Point cadet, actually played in the 1912 rivalry game. Bush 41, who is being laid to rest today,
At that 2016 game in which President Trump was in attendance, Army snapped a 14-game losing streak to Navy; the Black Knights won last year’s game as well, marking their first back-to-back wins since the back-end of a five-game winning streak that ran from 1992-96.
Navy currently leads the all-time series 60–51–7.
