The play came late in the game, when Rutgers expanded its lead over Navy to a comfortable level after a tight three quarters.

Navy\’s Reggie Campbell took the kickoff and ran full speed ahead up the middle with all the force his 168-pound body could generate. Campbell, almost always the smallest and fastest man on the field, hit a wall of XXXL-sized scarlet jerseys and was slammed to the ground at the bottom of the pile. He got up slowly, limping off. This gutsy kid, a slotback who already spent three quarters being chased and tackled by gangs of defensive linemen and linebackers, all weighing at least 100 pounds more than him, was then given a dose of Rutgers\’ student section class.

\’\’You got f—ed up. You got f—ed up. You got f–ed-up,\” they chanted.

Reggie Campbell is a senior. After graduation in June he has a five-year commitment to the American military, which, like it or not, is at war.

\”This is how you treat people who may die for this country?\” said Bill Squires, an Annapolis graduate (Class of\’75) who was on the sidelines for the Friday night game in Piscataway and was shocked by the obscene chants directed at the Navy players and fans throughout the game. \”It was the most classless thing I\’ve seen.\”

Navy was booed and peppered with \”You suck!\” chants when they stepped on the field for both halves. Toward the end of the second half, Rutgers students in the new bleacher section began to serenade the adjacent section of Navy fans and uniformed Midshipmen.

\’\’F— you, Navy. F—you, Navy. F— you, Navy.\”

\”There were wives and small children up there,\” said Squires, an academic recruiter for the academy who has been to dozens of away games and never seen such contempt directed at his team. \”Our Midshipmen reacted the way they were taught. They didn\’t respond, but the band started playing \’Anchors Aweigh\’ to drown them out. Me, I felt like going up there and smacking somebody. I was mad, and it bothered me all weekend.\”

Booing, cursing, chanting obscenities, unfortunately, are now part of the game day experience. It\’s easily been three decades since fans across the country in all sports began spending more time and creative energy jeering the visitors and officials than cheering the home team. Rutgers is far from the worst. They\’re not even the worst in New Jersey, not with the Jets\’ fans still in town. Still, every penalty against the Scarlet Knights is greeted with a chant of \”a–hole, a–hole, a–hole.\”

And now that Rutgers is winning, the long-suffering, self-effacing adult fans are being drowned out by a new generation of weight-room bully boys in scarlet T-shirts and red face-paint, who, from the safety of their seats, belittle the guys down on the field who take the hits.

Now that Rutgers is big-time, the old-time academic-and adult-minded fans are being elbowed aside by gangs of frat boys thrusting their fists and faces into the rolling ESPN cameras. What was it your old football coach used to say? Act like you\’ve been there before. Not in the RU student section.

\”At one point, I thought, we defend this country for people like this?\” said Squires, who lives in West Orange. \”I wasn\’t embarassed as a New Jerseyan. I was embarassed as a human being.\”

It was so noticeable that Rutgers athletic director Bob Mulcahy called down to Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk yesterday to make sure there were no hard feelings, according to John Wooding, an assistant AD at Rutgers.

Some will excuse the behavior as kids just being kids, out to have a loutish, drunken good time. Spewing obscenities at the visiting team is just part of the fun.

But you\’d hope our Jersey kids would be smart enough to make an exception for the service academies, especially the weekend before the anniversary of Sept. 11, their generation\’s own Day of Infamy. You\’d hope they\’d be sensitive enough to realize that some of those Midshipmen may soon be among the young American men and women fighting and bleeding and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Young Americans, the same age as those safe in the stands watching a football game with their faces and bodies painted red.

At the very least, you\’d think the Rutgers students would have some appreciation for the effort the undersize Navy players put out. They aren\’t like the players from Louisville or West Virginia or some of the other ranked powerhouses Rutgers now finds itself among. They are what Rutgers was not so many years ago. Students first, athletes second. Except better.

The new Rutgers is a big-time football school, with all the hype and manufactured drama. Coach Greg Schiano leads his team through pregame Scarlet Walk, chest out, stomach in, looking every bit the general except without gold braids, epaulets and a full rack of medals. The band plays. The cheerleaders and dance team girls wave pompoms. The conquering heroes go past, eyes front. At game time, the scoreboard TV shows the team coming down the tunnel to a soundtrack from Armageddon. An Army helicopter chop-chops overhead (your tax dollars at work).

Football has always marched to a militaristic or tribal drum beat, to whip up players to greater levels of violence. The game is always likened to war by coaches, players, announcers and writers who haven\’t been to war.

But to Reggie Campbell and his Navy teammates, Friday night\’s game wasn\’t war. It was a game. War is around the bend.

They deserved better.

And that red on the faces of some Rutgers\’ fans wasn\’t body paint.

The shortage of superintendents is a problem nationwide, said Barry Ersek, a former superintendent and the interim executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. Educators said there were several reasons behind the difficulty in finding and keeping superintendents in New Jersey, even with salary and benefit packages ranging from $150,000 to $250,000 a year.

Baby boomers are reaching retirement age and leaving the profession, and 16 years ago superintendent became one of the few administrative positions in New Jersey public education not to have tenure. In addition, Dr. Ersek said, the job has gotten more difficult in the last 10 years.

\”The stress and tension that exists these days has created quite a challenge,\” he said. A combination of high expectations from parents and the state for test scores and achievement, an increase in litigation and three- to five-year contracts for superintendents has put more pressure on them, he added.

There is also constant recruitment of superintendents by school boards and head-hunting firms. \”Superintendents have become very effective free agents,\” Dr. Ersek said. \”Recruiting is much more aggressive. If you are experienced and have a good reputation, you are getting called.\”

After two years, Joseph J. O’Brien left the Haddonfield School District during the summer, having been recruited to become the executive director of the Chester County Intermediate Unit, an educational service agency in Pennsylvania.

Dr. O’Brien said that he had not been looking to leave, but that the new job included a significant increase in benefits and salary and was closer to home. \”There are a lot of competing groups searching for superintendents,\” he said. \”There are a lot of people looking. You have a lot of movement in the field, and the job is tougher than it ever was before. Every decision is analyzed and studied, from punishing a student to changing a program.\”

Dr. Stansky said that she had had a pretty good relationship with her board in Gloucester City but that superintendents often do not feel they have much job security. \”Now, as soon as you make a decision a board doesn’t like, you’re out,\” she said. \”A lot of people come onto boards with personal agendas. Sometimes you have to make decisions that aren’t popular. A lot of it is politicking. No matter what you do, it is wrong, and a lot is driven by politics. My blood pressure medicine has quadrupled since I started this job.\”

Judith A. Ferguson, the superintendent for the Hopewell Valley Regional School District and a consultant for the national search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, has aided in searches in Westfield, South Orange/Maplewood and Livingston in the last 18 months.

\”The baby boomers are retiring and fewer numbers are coming into the field to replace them,\” she said. \”The job has become very challenging and demanding.\”

As districts go out looking, the number of candidates applying is down. \”The superintendent is the hardest job to fill,\” Dr. Ferguson said.

The average number of applicants is now 20 to 40, Dr. Ersek said, compared with 80 to 100 résumés 15 years ago; Dr. Ferguson put the current average number of candidates in a search at 30 to 35.

In Gloucester City, 19 candidates applied for Dr. Stansky’s position, with half of them having had superintendent experience. Paul A. Spaventa, the Mount Holly superintendent, was hired and was to start in November. Last year, in Winslow Township, about 40 applicants applied for the superintendent’s job, Dr. Ersek said, but fewer than half had superintendent experience.

In Montgomery Township, 35 candidates applied in the superintendent’s search last year, said Andrea Bradley, a Board of Education member who heads the search committee. \”We were very wary of just finding someone to fill the spot,\” she said. When none of the candidates fit the bill, the district brought in Dr. Stewart, who had retired from South Bridgeport in 2003, as the interim superintendent.

While being a superintendent has never been an easy job, it has become more of a hot seat in recent years, Dr. Stewart said. \”The superintendent has become the focus of attention,\” he said. \”If people are unhappy, they fire the coach.\”

In the last two years, Cherry Hill, a district of 11,800 students and 19 schools, has hired a superintendent, a curriculum director, a special services director and several principals.

\”They are all difficult to get,\” Ms. Adrian said. \”The superintendent is the hardest. They have a tough job.\”