The Problem

The book The Rivalry by John Feinstein covers one of the most bitter rivalries in sports, which is between colleges Army and Navy. These two colleges play each other once a year in what is one of the most competitive and hard fought games in all of college football. Even though The Rivalry is a fiction book, it describes a match that is very real. The main characters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, who are teen reporters, are attending the game to cover the outcome and remark on how well each team played. Instead, they end up having to solve a mystery, as something seems off about the game. Susan, who had attended the Army vs. Notre Dame game with the team a week before, had written an article about how horrible the referees were and how they made biased calls in favor of Notre Dame, the team that ended up winning the game. The same referees were officiating this same game, and their calls were just as poor in the beginning of this game if not worse than before. Something was obviously causing the referees to officiate this way, and Stevie and Susan need to get to the bottom of what is going on with these referees and why the game is being called in this manner. There is also a smaller mystery that involves the president, who is attending the game as well, and the dangers that he may be facing at the game. The book so far is somewhat interesting, yet the mystery is not very engaging. If I had to make a prediction, I would say that the referees are being paid by some inside person on one of the teams, probably Navy since Army had a very bad game called against them the last week, and that they were throwing the game in order for those people to win money. The game and the history of the rivalry is very interesting, but so far, the problem that the characters are faced with seems somewhat boring and rather obvious what the solution to the mystery is.