Bill's Bowl Blog

Return to Thunderdome

The players are warming up on the field. The line of midshipmen is formed in the parking lot out back. We’re all set up here alongside the cream of America’s sporting press. It won’t be long now before we see some football!

If you’ve never been, Washington’s Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium — the venue for today’s game — is one of the most distinctive stadiums in America. Opened in 1961 in Washington’s Southeast neighborhood, it’s a leaky, creaky, battered, stained old war horse of a sports venue; if the fans get going just the right way, the entire place shakes. The elevator up to the press box had old, back-lit plastic buttons and Eisenower-era metal numbers. The stadium was home to the Washington Redskins and the Washington Senators baseball team back in the day, and after baseball returned to the city the Washington Nationals played here for a few seasons. Today’s EagleBank Bowl is the first football game in RFK since 1999.

I can see a line of Marines taking a massive flag onto the field now; the crowd is on its feet. The top rows of seats are still empty, but there were plenty of people lined up from venerable old Stadium/Armory Metro stop, so this crowd looks like it’ll only get bigger.