I know it is more than a month before Army-Navy and I don’t have a dog in that fight… but it seems me Army attempt to recruit football players with female cadets failed and booze.
Perhaps they don’t have the same “talent” level at West Point as they do at an SEC school or even an ACC school?
I know it is more than a month before Army-Navy and I don’t have a dog in that fight… but it seems me Army attempt to recruit football players with female cadets failed and booze.
Perhaps they don’t have the same “talent” level at West Point as they do at an SEC school or even an ACC school?
A lot of my classmates are back at the academy as instructors or tactical officers, and they say this is old news around there. Cadets involved were very severely punished.
As a grad, I can only shake my head. I’m one of those that don’t believe the academies should have a division 1 (FBS or whatever) team to start with. We don’t want or need cadets that need to be pried with women and booze to go. I’ve always found it shameful that the school would give special privileges and loosen rules for football players, which they certainly did while I was there.
Unfortunately football brings in too much money to cut the program.
Hey, let’s take them to the mall, bowling, and on dates with cadet chicks. Yeah, that’ll entice them!
Clearly Navy and Air Force are doing a better job at recruiting!
As a grad, I can only shake my head. I’m one of those that don’t believe the academies should have a division 1 (FBS or whatever) team to start with. We don’t want or need cadets that need to be pried with women and booze to go. I’ve always found it shameful that the school would give special privileges and loosen rules for football players, which they certainly did while I was there.
I was a Company Officer and Instructor in the Leadership Department at the USNA (as a non grad and a Marine) 16 or so years ago. My Battalion Officer (a grad and also a Marine) was the Officer Rep of the Football team… let’s just say he and I didn’t see eye to eye on cutting football players slack or lowering the bar to allow them to service select to Marines. Not that I won many of those discussions, damn near got fired on one or two occasions, but I fundamentally agree that the service academies play div 1 football is not entirely in keeping with their mission.
I fundamentally agree that the service academies play div 1 football is not entirely in keeping with their mission.
I’m fully supportive of the viewpoint that football players should be required to adhere to all the same standards as other cadets and Midshipmen. However, I think that having Service Academies in D1 definitely serves the mission of those Academies, which is to produce officers. Many kids would have no exposure to, or even knowledge of, the Service Academies absent their inclusion in D1 football, the Army/Navy game, etc. Those programs can serve as powerful recruiting tools, and also help connect the public to the Armed Forces. Kind of like a NASCAR team sponsored by the Army or Navy. You can’t produce officers unless you get H.S. students to apply to the Academies.
No idea why girls would do this. It’s pretty much being pimped out to high school kids…so many things wrong with that. Plus, it’s not like these kids won’t figure it out once they get there anyway. Why even lie about cadet life? They will just be miserable if that’s how they expect to be treated all the time.
While I don’t have a problem with D1 sports at the academies, I think the athletes should still qualify just the same. I knew quite a few very bright athletes who continued into the AF and did well. Most were not football players, though. Some were.
I was never prouder than when I read about one of the QBs being kicked out for honor violations a couple years ago. We don’t need to win that badly.
They’re my local team (live 20 mins away) and I wish they were competitive enough for me to want to go to a game. But they’re not. I’m more into lacrosse anyway. And there they compete (and beat Navy). At least when Thule was there. Kid was a beast.
Many kids would have no exposure to, or even knowledge of, the Service Academies absent their inclusion in D1 football, the Army/Navy game, etc. Those programs can serve as powerful recruiting tools, and also help connect the public to the Armed Forces. Kind of like a NASCAR team sponsored by the Army or Navy. You can’t produce officers unless you get H.S. students to apply to the Academies.
I’d like to see some data to support that assertion on the football programs leading to HS kids becoming cadets/midshipmen. But as for NASCAR, the National Guard dropped sponsorship because it was $88M over several years to net essentially no new recruits.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/07/national-guard-recruiting-scandal/8813891/
The Guard received 24,800 recruiting prospects from the program in 2012, documents show. In those cases, potential recruits indicated the NASCAR affiliation prompted them to seek more information about joining. Of that group, only 20 met the Guard’s qualifications for entry into the service, and not one of them joined.