Sporting

Hunter deButts, a member of that team and 2010 Episcopal graduate, remembers McCain’s call. The senator told the team that he “wouldn’t be able to make the game because he was campaigning,” says deButts, but made clear “how much the rivalry meant to him—and how much he wanted us to kick their butts. It was great just to have him talk about the importance of the game.”

Perhaps stoked by McCain’s pep talk, Episcopal went out and won the game, 14-13. Two months later, McCain won the New Hampshire primary. McCain brushes aside any credit given to him for inspiring Episcopal’s victory. “I gave them my standard motivational comments,” he says. “I told them that after I left high school, I had to overcome some odds from time to time, and I knew they could, too.”

To bystanders, the annual gridiron matchup between Episcopal High School and Woodberry Forest School is just another game, but to students and alumni of the two Virginia boarding schools, it’s practically the only game. And it’s easy to see why. The annual season-ending contest between the two schools is the oldest consecutive high school football rivalry in the South, dating back to 1901. The series has continued through world wars, catastrophic events and financial depressions. Massie Meredith, a 1975 Woodberry graduate and former defensive back on the football team, fairly reflects the fervor with which alums of the two schools view the game. He has not missed one for 39 years. “When you arrive at the school as a new boy,” he says, “you hear about the game your first week. It’s almost a mystical experience. Everybody buys into it. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. For the team that wins, it’s something you will cherish for the rest of your life.”

McCain likewise realized the importance of the November rivalry the first day of his freshman year. “It was impressed upon me,” he says with a laugh. “As rats, as we were then called, we were urged to be the most enthusiastic and cheering students.” The Naval Academy grad compares the charged atmosphere to the Army/Navy rivalry. “The intensity at the Episcopal vs. Woodberry game equaled that.”