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No-lard climb a good call

When Naval Academy plebes gathered for the annual Herndon climb at the academy on May 24, they found the obelisk clean and dry.

For the first time since 1969, upperclassmen were forbidden from greasing the granite monument with 200 pounds of lard. Also missing: the hoses used by upperclassmen to spray the plebes and make the task even more humiliating and difficult.

Instead of hours of agony, the climb was over in two minutes, five seconds.

Thank Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, the academy superintendent. He ordered the change out of the legitimate concern that the monument climb had become an irrelevant and dangerous ritual, rather than a meaningful rite of passage.

Fowler initially told reporters that it should be up to the midshipmen to cancel the event — which was a cop-out.

But recognizing that leadership must start at the top, Fowler reconsidered and, rather than ending the event outright, removed the slime and hazing and left the rest for the sake of tradition.

Good call, admiral.

Over the next few years, if successor superintendents don’t backtrack on Fowler’s progress, the lard-free version of the Herndon climb will gradually become less of a spectacle and more of a benign tradition. In its place, Sea Trials, a grueling team-building exercise that lasts 14 hours, will become the true — and far more appropriate — conclusion to Plebe Year.

Of course, academy alumni will grumble that this year’s freshmen haven’t done the “real” Herndon climb, and that Fowler has ruined a cherished tradition. Baloney. Only a few mids ever really participated in the climb — most stood by as their classmates struggled and their upper-class brethren hosed everyone down.

The truth is, some traditions need to die. And Herndon was one of them.