CORAL GABLES, Fla. — A few dozen people were gathered in a small theater decorated with military accouterments. Soldiers past and present were there, some in dress uniform, some decades into retirement. They snapped to attention when the nation's colors were presented, recited the Pledge of Allegiance and told stories for hours — all over what happened on a football field 70 years ago.

“Army-Navy,” West Point graduate A.J.?Miceli told the crowd, “resonates patriotism within all of us.”

But this gathering carried even more meaning. It wasn't just to celebrate the 70th anniversary of perhaps the greatest game in college football's greatest rivalry, but it was also to commemorate a friendship that goes back to the early 1940s and only grew stronger when tested by competition.

Arnold Tucker was Army's quarterback and Pete Williams was Navy's halfback that crisp fall day in 1946, when heavily favored Army reaped the benefit of a still-debated call on the final play to hold off the upset-minded Midshipmen, 21-18. They were teammates at Miami High years earlier, are now retired and back in South Florida, and the College Football Hall of Famers have remained close.

“It's so surprising that it's that important to people,” Williams said. “It's a football game. We just didn't think about it being something that other generations following us would give a second thought to.”

Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard had led Army to three straight undefeated seasons. Navy had one win in 1946 and had lost seven in a row. Sportswriters gave the Midshipmen no chance, and when Army rolled to a big early lead, a rout seemed imminent. And then it all changed.

Navy got within 21-18, and was driving on the game's final series. Williams took a pitch and went around the right side as time was running out, then tried to get out of bounds to stop the clock. Dozens of people were packed along the sideline, fans having moved down to the field after the security detail that would have kept them at bay departed when President Harry S. Truman left to catch his train.

Navy people still say Williams hit the sideline and the clock should have stopped. Army folks insist he was tackled inbounds. Officials let the clock run, time expired and Army escaped.

Williams won't say what he thinks.

“That's a secret I'm going to take to the grave with me,” he said, grinning. “I just don't want to have to tell anybody anything. It's something that makes the game stay in people's minds. People say they have to find out — and I say, ‘Well, you'll have to follow me someplace else, because while I'm breathing, I'm not telling.'?”

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adm. Chester W. Nimitz were at the game, both giving up their seats to veterans wounded in World War II. More than 100,000 fans attended, and IRS investigators were outside the stadium to tax those who were reselling the $3 tickets for nearly 20 times face value.

“This game goes beyond the final score,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph P. DiSalvo, deputy commander of U.S. Southern Command in Miami. “I venture to guess if you go to any Alabama alumni or whatever six months from now and ask them what they recollect from the game with Clemson, you'll get some but not much. You ask any West Point or Navy graduate about any game, any year that they personally experienced, it could be 70 years ago or one year ago, and they forever remember it.”

They know the names, too.

Case in point: When Army football coach Jeff Monken, born more than 20 years after this particular game, found out that he was autographing a gift for Tucker, he left a recruiting-weekend event to rush to his office and send a handwritten letter as well. Both Tucker and Williams got footballs, the traditional Army and Navy bathrobes and helmets, which left them cracking jokes.

“That one has a face mask,” said Tucker, 92, when getting his.

“Maybe I wouldn't have had so many concussions if I had this one,” Williams replied.

When the tributes were done, including one from Vice Adm. Ted Carter — the superintendent of the Naval Academy, who said “we should never lose respect for this game” — Tucker and Williams each took the microphone, offering kind words for each other. They posed for pictures long after the formal program ended, shaking hands and sharing stories.

“It seems that people think this game was really something special,” Tucker said.