Inside Army-Navy - A day in the life of students at the service academies - ESPN

THE STEEP CLIMB up Stony Lonesome Road is harrowing, even for the fittest of Army's football players. When the shuttle buses aren't running in the winter, team members hoof it from their barracks to the Kimsey Athletic Center for offseason mat drills at 5 o'clock in the morning, typically in freezing temperatures with a layer of snow on the ground.

The last thing they see before making the final left turn is the historic «Beat Navy» house, built in 1875 and used to accommodate distinguished guests. The building, with its illuminated sign out front, is a reminder that the football mission at Army is clear. It's why you see «BEAT NAVY» signs everywhere in and around West Point, New York, from the Food Mart Go Army convenience store in nearby Fort Montgomery to the urinals in the football complex. Yes, the urinals.

In downtown Annapolis, Maryland, the waterfront home of the U.S. Naval Academy, souvenirs with GO NAVY BEAT ARMY are in storefronts everywhere — year-round — but on campus, everything ramps up during «Army Week.» That's when the coaching staff double-checks every door is locked. It's when mascot security is turned up a notch. (In 2012, Navy's goat mascot went missing and was found next to a grass median on Army Navy Drive in Crystal City near the Pentagon.) It's when the scout team wears black stripes on their helmets to mimic Army's players.

Because of who the players are — and the soldiers they will soon become — the Army-Navy rivalry game, which will be contested for the 125th time Saturday in Landover, Maryland, is unlike any other in the country, drawing a global audience of our nation's armed forces past and present.

But as the college football landscape continues to rapidly shift, the lives of students at