New London — Even the most ardent anti-sports zealot within the hierarchy of the Coast Guard wouldn't have missed a chance to be seen here Saturday afternoon. That's because this wasn't merely a game. It was an event. A chance to — literally — show the nation a four-hour infomercial on the Academy and all its tentacles, played out through a football game on ESPN3.

Fancy that: ESPN comes to the venerable banks of the Thames on a crisp, late autumn afternoon. Stands filled and foliage radiating around Cadet Memorial Field for the annual game of Army-Navy Light, otherwise known as the Merchant Marine Academy vs. Coast Guard, purveyors of safety on waters, waters everywhere.

It became evident — to moi, anyway — that Coast Guard doesn't merely have an exemplary athletic department for Division III, but one to be envied in bigger outposts with bigger budgets and fussbudgets for alumni.

And so from athletic director Tim Fitzpatrick on down — Dan Rose, Katherine Bossardet, Artie Lamoureux, Jason Southard and all the gang — a giant sah-loot, as they used to say from the corn field on Hee Haw, for a wonderful show all day Saturday and every day. From ESPN's visit to pregame marches and halftime recognition of Coast Guard's Vietnam veterans, the day was a straight 'A.'

Except for the game.

And isn't that always the way at Coast Guard?

Coast Guard has everything any athletic department would ever need — innovative thinking, diligent staff, people who truly care — except enough good players.

Perhaps members of the hierarchy within the Academy and beyond could ponder the following rhetorical questions:

Do athletics represent Coast Guard in the most professional way possible? (Answer: yes).

Are various avenues for funding and sponsorships constantly pursued? (Answer: yes).

How about exposure? (ESPN isn't coming to do a 30-for-30 on differential equations).

Hmmm.

Perhaps, too, members of the athletic department could ask themselves the following question:

Why the hell do we bother?

I mean, what's the ultimate point of bringing ESPN here, working overtime to prepare every detail, if the players on the field just aren't (seemingly ever) good enough?

And why aren't they good enough?

Because Coast Guard won't dare to be great.

Straight up: If you dare blame coach Bill George for a 3-7 season, you don't get it. Or don't want to. Or are trying to justify your own existence. The Bears were 3-1 this season when starting quarterback Ethan Goldcamp went down with a season ending injury. They lost 'em all after that. This is called cause and effect.

The defense couldn't stop Merchant Marine's triple option Saturday because of personnel, not scheme. I maintain that some of the most creative coaching in Division III happens here because George and his staff have no other choice. They're not big enough or deep enough. Sometimes, however, creativity isn't enough.

Funny thing, too, about George: He has always honored the time-honored coaching yardstick: Don't screw up good talent. Last time George had a quarterback here that was as adept as Merchant Marine's Brice Moore on Saturday? His name was Christian George, the erstwhile Div. III Flutie. And the Bears won a whole lot of games in the Christian George era.

Duh.

But then in those days — 2007, 2008 — football was winning with George and Pete Barry's basketball teams were making the Elite Eight. Barry, by the way, isn't convinced many of the kids who played in those days would be admitted to the Academy today.

Note: They've all become officers.

The idea that it took, almost literally, an act of Congress to allow football a "weight waiver," or the ability to recruit linemen who could pinch more than an inch and not violate the body fat guidelines, would be hilarious, if not Exhibit A that football is becoming all but impossible here. You can bring in Bill Belichick. You give him 200-pound nose tackles and he loses just like everyone else.

I know. Familiar rant. But then there's this: Coast Guard's new football affiliation in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference means that to make the NCAA tournament, the Bears must beat, among others, Springfield. A perennially terrific program that doesn't have to recruit, you know, engineers.

And what evidence exists the Bears will ever — ever — be able to beat Springfield again?

And if you truly cannot win the conference, why are you in it?

Coast Guard athletics in 2017: The definition of insanity. Doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. They'll keep up the excellence in the department. Everywhere but the field. Until the coaches there — especially football — are allowed to recruit better players, nothing's going to change. Nothing.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro