Stories have the power to connect us, surprise us and even inspire us.
Consider the legends surrounding Philo McGiffin, Class of 1882, an alumnus renowned for his battlefield heroics and his campus antics. Yes, it’s fun to imagine him dumping flour out a window and onto the heads of officers down below, but there are also lessons to be learned from his mischievous streak.
In fact, Claude Berube, director of the Naval Academy Museum, argues that some of the Academy’s most mischievous graduates are also among its most successful.
“There’s a group who didn’t want to study very hard; they did the minimum so they could go off and enjoy other things,” he said. “But there was a value to that in battle, because they thought differently than somebody who was looking at more complex operations.”
The Naval Academy is full of stories like these: tales of greatness and fabled achievements—and, for good measure, a few humbling mistakes.
Still, we couldn’t help but wonder just how much truth lies in Naval Academy campus lore— so we did a little digging.
What we found? Even the most legendary, outlandish myths have a kernel of truth.
Feature originally appeared in the U.S. Naval Academy alumni magazine, Shipmate.