There is something sad in what should be a good news story about a young man in his last year of high school with an opportunity to go to do what he has always wanted to do – play D1 football.

Sad?

First of all, let’s think about the young man;

… his 6-foot-3, 280-pound frame …

That is a large young man. An athlete in his late teens with that genetically blessed body shape is, in most cases, at the leanest he will be in his life. He isn’t even through growing. Odds are that with age he will get heavier and perhaps even taller. I’m roughly his height and kept growing until I was 20. That is just how, in most all cases, nature works.

D1 football is full of guys his size and even larger. No issue here, unless you are buying dinner. Good football schools look for men like that.

How about our Navy?

Well, check the Navy’s height-weight chart – at 75″ he will need to work on that neck to be in our Navy – your maximum weight is 217.

What if there is only one D1 school was interested in that young man, but he really does not want to “go Navy.” That is just a means to an end, but his primary drive will lead him to the one door opened to him, the US Naval Academy.

Would this be – in the long run for both USNA and the young man in question – the best path to take?

Why does he want to go to USNA? Football. He simply wants to play football.

The offer from Navy couldn’t have come soon enough for Ronnie Brooks. The Maret lineman had just wrapped up his junior year, and at the time, he said, it seemed like all his friends and former teammates were getting heavily recruited.

Brooks was not. In spite of a strong junior season and his 6-foot-3, 280-pound frame, there was little interest.

“I was a little down on myself, thinking this wasn’t going to come. Everything wasn’t working how I thought,” he said.

But his luck turned early in the summer after a one-day camp at Navy, one which he nearly didn’t attend. Brooks considered forgoing the camp since he hadn’t heard from the recruiting coach; he was going to instead spend that day looking for a new helmet.

“My dad was just like, ‘Why don’t you just skip the Navy camp?’” he said.

But Brooks convinced his father that the Annapolis visit would be worth their time, and he was right, as it resulted in an offer from the Division I Football Championship Subdivision school.

Catch that. Just another “school.”

“Schools” must be careful that they define who they are. Football is, rightfully, seen as an important part of the collegiate experience for all, and the desire to play is strong with young men. But, it is also seen as a supporting activity to what is the real purpose of the college/university/academy – education. For the service academies – it is also producing officers to lead Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Soldiers in to combat.

For schools with student population in the four-figures, what do you have to do to compete with schools who don’t have such a refined mission, and have a pool of “seats” in the tens of thousands to pull from? You have a smaller pool and are going to have to take exceptional measures to compete. You will have to make exceptions.

All of our service academies are D-1 FBS (nee 1-A) schools – the top level. Each year the pressure gets greater and greater for the best players as the level of play continues to get more intense.

Here and at other places, we have covered what kind of compromises USNA makes to play D1 football. Compromises to the mission of NAPS, academic, discipline, and other standards that support the broader mission of USNA. These compromises are only there because they have to be for USNA to unnaturally compete at the D1 level.

It brings us back to the core question: at what price to the institution and the players?

At what point do the compromises become too much? Is FBS really where we should be? Why not another division? Even D-III? What is wrong with D-III? Nothing. Good enough for MIT – why not USNA? Fewer compromises would be made – but you’d still have the game. This is, after all, just a game – remember that.

Would the desired mission-related effects of playing sports – leadership, character refinement, school spirit – still be there? Of course they would. So, why D1?

Sure, the highest paid person that works for the Navy is the football coach – paid for by alumni, of course … and there you go.

This isn’t about the best interests of USNA, the MIDN, or the Navy as a whole. If it were, then you wouldn’t need outside funds to pay for the quality coach you need.

So, this is about the alumni and desire for a D1 team to cheer for? If so, perhaps they should have gone to a different school with a NROTC scholarship? What compromises are they willing to have their USNA make to allow them to have USNA at D1? Would they be willing to make “sacrifices” in order to let USNA compete at its natural level, say D-III? If not, why not? Does the lack of D-1 football make MIT any less of a school? Attract any less a quality of student?

Let’s go back to Ronnie Brooks. Because this is where the real tragedy is. He loves football. He really wants to play football. After four years at USNA, will he want to go pro? In the highly unlikely event he would have an opportunity to go pro – will we let him – or force him to serve? Will he even be physically able to serve, or to even make the cut as a walk-on?

The most likely event, as it is for all college athletes, is that he won’t. Even more unlikely for someone from the service academies. As a result, is he positioned to compete in the highly competivive profession of being a Navy or Marine Corps officer? Even though this wasn’t a desire that brought him to think about USNA, after a few years, he may decide he does.

Once he joins the fleet, will he be able to make a physical standard that, as an officer, he will have to enforce on his Sailors? The years of special treatment will be over; he will just be one more ENS or 2LT.

Every year he has company making that challenge work – and I saw it in my career. Right now on the Naval Academy team we have a 6’3″ 300# MIDN, 5’11” 277#, 6’2″ 293#, 6’2″ 315#, 6’1″ 310# … and so on.

Few things are more depressing than seeing a 25-yr old man having an emotional breakdown because he can’t get below 215# even if he eats like a supermodel. It is not easy – but after demanding they do one thing so middle aged men can watch them play D1 football, on a dime their Navy will require them to drastically change their body shape … if they can. Not everyone can and still be healthy.

Are we setting him up for something he may, coming out the door, be doomed to fail in? Whose fault is it?

I don’t want to get in to a battle over the Navy’s height-weight standards – I happen to have significant issues with them. Was never a problem with me, as those who have met me know, I have your standard issue Anglo-Norman genetics of being about Ronnie’s height with a 33″ waist and 46L coat – as I have since high school +/-. What I have seen are some of the best people I have served with struggle simply due to their DNA to make it – and their career suffered for it. Love or hate – it is what it is and if you are on the wrong side of the tape – your career is over – or stunted where you are when your metabolism changes.

It was one thing when I was 22 to go from 225# to 185#. It is another to go from 300# to 215.9#. I wish them all well.

There is one last institutional side issue; would USNA recruit a 17-yr old 6’3″ 280# young man who was a winner at the Google Science Fair? If they did – would they let him stay at that weight? What about a 5’11” 210# female softball player?

Supported, or supporting?

I also wish that all those who invest so much of their own personal feelings of self-worth – and money – in to the NAAA and football would ask themselves, why? To what end?