If not for the efforts of Penn Vet doctors and students near Unionville, a football game steeped in tradition may have had to break tradition. The Chester County staff nursed a fragile Navy mascot back to health ahead of this weekend’s big Army-Navy game at Philly’s Lincoln Financial Field.

Bill 36 — from the number the new-this-year goat wears on his blue and gold blanket — developed mineral stones that blocked his urethra and required surgery in September, followed by a bout of eating poisonous azaleas in November. Both times, the Penn Vet New Bolton Center, located between Unionville and Kennett Square, treated the angora goat.

“Both Bills are very interactive and curious, jumping up on the stall door to greet us,” surgery resident Dr. Holly Stewart said in a Daily Local News report.

Bill 36 and Bill 35 are the brothers destined to replace the older generation of mascots.

“Oh, the goats are great,” spokeswoman Louisa Shepard said in the article. “They are very good goats with lots of personality. … The students fell in love with them.”

Read more about the weeks Bill 36 spent at New Bolton Center in the Daily Local News here, and watch him in action on CBS Saturday at 3 p.m.