Great Army v Navy Football today contested for the first time at West Point since 1943.
This is sacred ground for me professionally. in 1993, only months after Bob Schwartz and I co-founded Campuslink, we walked into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point Auditorium to pitch our Company and our technology vision for this 200 year old Campus.
Armed only with our vision, intense passion, great imaginations, and a well-honed 20-page Harvard Graphics slide deck (prepped on transparencies), we were greeted by about 50 Army Officers and Enlisted personnel grouped together down in front of this huge auditorium. They were there for us, and only for us. There was only a podium, a small table, and an overhead projector on the stage. We were confident, but it was still scary, we had a lot riding on this.
We had already performed a dozen or two similar pitches and were going to contract on a couple twenty year-long agreements, but this was West Point, this was the brass ring. Maybe not in size, but certainly in brand and credibility. It was one of those accounts that just saying the name opened doors.
After a few formal introductions we began our presentation about how we would completely rewire the entire Campus and deliver Voice, Internet, and CATV to every Dorm Room, Class Room, and to every corner of the Academy across 16,000 acres using all new inside and outside plant and that we would accomplish this with no upfront costs.
Everyone gasped and then you could hear a pin drop. We had not made it past the second slide. Gasps were commonplace with our pitch, we were used to them, they made us smile, every University Campus we pitched gasped. They gasped with amazement about how we could do it. (Remember this is 1993, very few Colleges & Universities even had telephone jacks in the dorm rooms never mind CATV or Internet. Payphones in dorm basements, a TV room per building, and dial-up internet if you could find a POTS line on campus to connect to, was the norm)
We quickly realized these were not gasps of joy and intrigue. An Army Major stood up and stated; “Sir, this is the United States Military Academy. Sir, this is not a resort. Sir, West Point Cadets are not here to make phone calls, Sir, our Cadets are not here to surf the Internet or watch Cable TV. He then peered into the crowd and whispered; "who authorized this meeting?" One of his peers leaned over and whispered back what we suspect was the name of a much higher-ranking officer who sponsored us. He immediately sat down, smiled and said; "Gentlemen, I apologize for the interruption, please continue"
In literally 15 seconds we went from all the wind knocked out of us, to right back in the game and this time, with even greater attentiveness. It then took two more years to close, but it did close. The game today simply reminded me of how proud and fortunate I am to have a piece of me forever stamped on those grounds. It’s simply an amazing place and everyone should visit West Point at some point. Fall is the best time. Stay at the Thayer, and if you’re a golfer, bring your sticks, West Point Golf Course is a very cool public track.