Tired of NIL and transfer portal? Consider enlisting the Army or Navy
Are you, like many, disillusioned with the current state of college football?
Join the group.
Don’t like the transfer portal because your favorite player this season could get his points for your opponent next year?
I understand you.
You say you don’t care about the NIL because you don’t think 20-year-old quarterbacks should make twice as much as college presidents and heart surgeons?
You are not alone.
You liked it better when college players played more for the love of the game and not for the almighty dollar?
Boy oh boy do I have two teams for you: Army and Navy.
Choose your own. Both are invincible. Both are nationally ranked. And it doesn’t pay its players. It does not recruit players from the transfer portal. The Army Black Knights and Navy Midshipmen are true student athletes. They go into the room and do their grades or they don’t play. Many were honor students, if not valedictorians, at their high schools. They don’t drop out of school after three years to go to the NFL. No, they become military officers and serve their country after four years of rigorous, world-class education.
Army, in No. 23, defeated East Carolina 45-28 Saturday to move to 7-0. No. 25 Navy shut out Charlotte 51-17 to move to 6-0.
I have to tell you that my appreciation for Navy-Army football started in childhood, when the annual Navy-Army football game was required viewing at my father’s house. with. He served in the Navy in World War II, so we cheered for the Marines. Then, in our backyard after the game, I imagined myself as Navy SEAL Roger Staubach, throwing my brother, former Navy quarterback Joe Bellino. Both were Heisman Trophy winners. Both served their country. Staubach delayed his Hall of Fame NFL career by four years, serving as an officer in the Navy, including one year in Vietnam.
The sixties and decades since have been difficult times for the Army and Navy. Most blue collar college football prospects dream of playing in the NFL, not fighting for their country. That Navy and Army are going to have this incredible performance just as college football has been transformed by the NIL and the transfer portal seems a long way off.
But maybe it shouldn’t. While most college football teams now have an annual turnover of fruit baskets, the Army and Navy teams do not change except for alumni to be replaced by new recruits.
“That’s how we build our team here, and that’s how college football teams throughout the history of football have built their teams,” Army coach Jeff Monken told reporters. “Recruit high school players, keep them in your program, develop them, and hopefully put together a team that can win. That’s how we do it here. ”
You’ll hear TV commentators say that playing college football is like a full-time job. If so, players in the Army, Navy and Air Force work three full-time jobs. They play their games. They take on a heavy, heavy academic load that doesn’t allow them to get easy grades. They also learn to be soldiers.
For the best description of the grueling schedule that athletes face at military schools, do yourself a favor and buy the book “A Civil War” by author John Feinstein. In it, you will learn that an easy two hours each day for Army and Navy players is the time they spend training. Their days begin long before sunrise and end after the required study late at night, if not in the wee hours of the morning.
Ole Miss All American Barney Poole played on national championship teams at Army before returning to Mississippi to play at Ole Miss. I called Barney in 1998 before a trip to West Point to play in the Southern Miss-Army game. I was taking my 12 year old son and wanted to make sure he saw all the things he saw. Barney, one of the nicest men I’ve ever known, told me everything my son and I needed to see, and he said, “Show him all that, but make sure you told him, it’s better than more. on the outside looking in is more than what it looks like on the outside.”
How is it, I asked, and Barney replied, “West Point is not for everyone. Those guys go through hell and back. Believe me, I know. ”
Mississippi is represented on the Army and Navy teams. Chance Keith, a former Biloxi High player, is a senior defensive tackle at Army. Jake Norris of Madison Central and freshman Noah Short of Madison-Ridgeland Academy both play at Navy.
Navy will host Notre Dame this Saturday. Army has an open day before playing Air Force on Nov. 2. Most college football players visit home or enjoy some time during an open day. Put it this way: Most Army players will play the game of gambling in their studies and make up any training they may have missed because of football.
The annual Army-Navy game is scheduled for Dec. 14 this year. There is also the possibility that the two teams will meet last week in the American Athletic Conference championship game. The top two teams in the league play for the championship. For now, it will be the Army and Navy.
Couldn’t that be something else?
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