A Voice for All Seasons

By Bob Socci

Originally published on www.navysports.com on Dec. 1, 2011.

Here I sit at the keyboard, two weeks after Navy’s last game at San Jose State and roughly a week before the Midshipmen play their next against Army.

Leaves have been collected from the backyard and stuffed into lawn bags.  Rooms have been switched and furniture re-arranged, as my wife and I try to get organized before a chaotic Holiday season and the expected arrival of our second child.

So I must admit, as much as I miss the excitement of a football game day and love my Saturdays in the Navy radio booth, all this idle time of late has led to some semblance of order to life.  Temporary as it no doubt is.

Heck, there’s even time today to attack the stacks of bills (yikes!), magazines (no matter that by now their pages are filled with old news) and junk mail (seriously, how can the postal service be in such trouble?) rising on and around my desk since a late-September bye-week.

And yet, because I’m far better at procrastinating than prognosticating (put it this way, there’s a reason I’ve never gambled), I think I’ll hold off on them for now.  After all, there’s bound to be a free day or two sometime before the 2012 season opens in Dublin, right?

Besides, I’d much rather use the time to share some items that recently crossed my mind or were written into my notebook.

But like so many other things around here, at least until the last few days, there’s little organization to what I’m about to write; less a stream of consciousness than a handful of random thoughts.

*****

During Paul Johnson’s six-year tenure as Navy’s head coach, the question of whether an option offense could succeed in the NFL arose periodically.  As with most topics, Paul didn’t mince words.  His answer was a resounding “yes,” presuming the “right personnel” was in place.

“Can you imagine Michael Vick running it?,” Johnson once said of the then Atlanta Falcon during a commercial break in his radio show, scoffing at the conventional thinkers who’ve long considered the option unfit for the pros.

Well, years later, with Johnson now in Atlanta at Georgia Tech, the ex-coach of the Midshipmen certainly looks like he knew what he was talking about.  Not that you’d ever expect otherwise, given his option expertise.

While Vick is injured on an underachieving Philadelphia team, the Denver Broncos ride a four-game winning streak on the shoulders of a terrific defense and, yes, an option offense.

As anyone not “too busy keeping up with the Kardashians” (more on that in a moment) knows, the Broncos and, specifically, quarterback Tim Tebow are part of the conversation on every frequency from 24-hour sports-talk radio stations to NPR’s All Things Considered.

Of course, much of the chatter concerns either the magnetism or, to many, the polarization associated with Tebow.  But what fascinates me is how the Broncos have gone from 1-4 to 5-1 since bucking NFL stereotypes by doing to pro defenses what the Mids have done in the college ranks since Johnson came to Annapolis in 2002.

True, Denver runs the read-option; more along the lines of what Tebow operated at the University of Florida.  Still, basic principles of that offense are the same as Navy’s triple-option.

In 2008 the Miami Dolphins confused opponents by essentially resurrecting the Single Wing with the Wildcat formation.  Rival coaches were left to explain how the unfamiliarity of it in the modern NFL was cause for great consternation.

Suddenly, we’re hearing similar things about preparing for the Broncos.  Much the same way opposing coaches have spoken about the Midshipmen throughout the last decade.

*****

Speaking of the offense Johnson reinstituted after the one-time Navy offensive coordinator was hired as head coach in ’02, I was in Dallas the night the Mids debuted under his direction with a 38-7 rout of SMU.

Joining me on the radio, just he’d done the previous year at Toledo and would do on a couple of other occasions, was Ron Wolf.  A former executive for the Raiders, Buccaneers and Packers, Ron had retired to Annapolis and filled-in as a color commentator on our broadcasts.

Last Sunday — as noted by Sports Illustrated’s Peter King — marked the 20th anniversary of his hiring as Green Bay’s general manager.  Wolf went on to trade for Brett Favre; hire Mike Holmgren; convince Reggie White to sign as a free agent; and develop a scouting and drafting system that led to two Super Bowl titles, on his watch in 1997 and under protege Ted Thompson last season.

Ron recently made the list of 26 semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a “contributor” to the game.  In early January the nominees will be pared to the 15 names included on this year’s ballot for enshrinement in Canton.

Though no longer seen driving around Annapolis in his red convertible — Ron and his wife moved back to Wisconsin — surely everyone he associated with at the Academy is pulling for him to have a HOF bust next summer.

Wolf is a brilliant evaluator of football talent; shrewd enough to select Mark Brunell and Matt Hasselbeck withfifth- and sixth-round draft picks, respectively.  He’s also a historian of the sport and big fan of service academies, in particular.

While in Annapolis, he owned season tickets and regularly borrowed old films of Navy greats from video coordinator John McGuire; always in a genuinely appreciative and unassuming manner.

*****

A no-doubt future Hall of Famer with far-reaching Academy ties, Bill Belichick, said something this week that, I believe, has great relevance to the Army-Navy Game.

The three-time Super Bowl champion head coach of the Patriots and son of the late longtime Navy assistant, Steve Belichick, discussed first-place New England’s upcoming meeting with the winless Indianapolis Colts:

“(Our players) heard me talk about it every week, saying we don’t care about the record, and we don’t,’’ Belichick was quoted in The Boston Globe.  “What difference does it make?  Look, how somebody played two weeks ago against somebody else, who cares?  Us or anybody else.  It doesn’t matter.  The only thing that matters is how we and the Colts perform against each other on Sunday.  That’s all that matters.  Who cares who won three weeks ago in some other game against some other players?  It doesn’t matter.

“We talk about it every . . . It doesn’t matter. There’s 16 games on our schedule, they’re all the same.  It’s our team against that team that week and we look at, try to learn about our opponent and scout them and pick up tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses, and all that, but how we match up against that team that day is all that matters.

“The rest of it is just a bunch of garbage.  You guys can write about it all you want, it doesn’t matter.  I mean, really.  The winner of this game will be decided by which team plays better on Sunday, not what happened four weeks ago.  It’s like that every week.  Every week.’’

So what, you ask, does that have to do with the Mids and Black Knights?  Navy has won their last nine encounters, all by margins of 12 points or more.  In fact, overall in the Commander-In-Chief’s series, Army has lost 21 of its last 23 games.

Belichick, you and I all know that despite recent history, what matters is how the Mids match up with the Cadets next Saturday.  Still, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded; even if by a coach speaking in the context of Patriots-Colts.

*****

Finally, you might have heard halftime commentary by Bob Costas during NBC’s telecast of the Steelers vs. Chiefs last Sunday evening.  If not, perhaps you at least heard or read about it (check it out here).

Maybe you agree with those critics who labeled Costas smug and self-righteous.  I — to the surprise of absolutely nobody who knows me — think differently.  To my ears, Costas’s soliloquy sounded like the best 2 minutes, 20 seconds I’ve heard on network TV in a long, long while.

His words and the video to support them remind me of one of the great rewards in covering the Midshipmen.  And give all of us further reason to look forward to what we won’t see when we watch Army-Navy next weekend.

Join Bob on Saturday, Dec. 10, when he calls his 15th Army-Navy Game, working alongside Omar Nelson, on the Navy Radio Network.

By Bob Socci

Originally posted on navysports.com on October 31, 2011.

Last winter when the Navy Midshipmen were polled by their coaches to name a new pair of captains, the easy choice for the defense was Jabaree Tuani.

“The perfect defensive captain,” his once and again teammate, in high school and at the Naval Academy, Mason Graham declared.

Not that it mattered as they cast their votes, nonetheless his fellow Mids paid Tuani the same level of respect he earned in his prior life as a student attending at a small, private school near Nashville, Tenn. There, at Brentwood Academy, the popular Tuani was elected the school’s first African-American class president.

“I was at a predominantly white high school, but it didn’t bother me at all,” Tuani says. “I got to know everybody on a personal level.”

They, including Graham, did the same; ignoring the meaningless obvious for the only thing that matters when judging another. It was no different four years later.

And no surprise. The Midshipmen were here in the first place because of the content of their character. From the shades of their skin to the syllables forming their family names, they’re representative of an increasingly diverse Academy.

Descendants of the Far East, Latin America, the Pacific Islands and numerous other latitudes and longitudes, they consider themselves a Brotherhood. As teammates, race and ethnicity are irrelevant.

They serve under a Commander-In-Chief, Barack Obama, who is our first African-American president. Often they train inside a state-of-the-art facility named in honor of the Academy’s first black graduate, Wesley Brown.

More than any other player, save for fellow captain Alexander Teich, Tuani speaks for them. His is the voice that resonates from their locker room to Bancroft Hall to the ears of those outside Academy walls. He is their team leader in a 21st Century Annapolis.

But less than a half century ago, this was a very different place and Navy football had a very different look, because the Mids all looked the same.

While Brown graduated in the Class of ’49, it wasn’t until 1964 — 17 years after Jackie Robinson debuted with baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers – that a player of color played for the Blue and Gold.

Recently, Tuani was quizzed about that football predecessor, a son of the South, who blazed a trail to Annapolis. An inquiring mind wanted to know if he’d ever heard of Calvin Huey. Tuani had not.

In fairness — and full disclosure — neither had the individual who posed the question; at least not until the most recent week or two of a 15-year tenure covering the Midshipmen. Nor had his broadcast partner from the Navy Radio Network, Omar Nelson, a ’97 grad and former USNA instructor particularly close to many players of the last decade.

The same was true in May 2008, when Frank Simmons returned to his alma mater for the dedication of the Wesley Brown Field House. Recognizing a prominent member of the Mids, Simmons pulled the young man aside and asked: Do you know who Calvin Huey is?

As with Tuani, Nelson and this writer; if Huey’s name rang a bell, the significance of the man and his accomplishments didn’t quite reverberate. That’s when Simmons made it his mission to educate the rest of us about Huey, as well as Emerson Carr; two individuals as important as any in Navy football history.

Simmons was commissioned with the Class of ’68. When he entered the Academy, blacks within the Brigade included three seniors, no juniors and two sophomores. He was one of seven minority plebes, among the four to graduate.

Working as a program manager for SAIC, the Fortune 500 defense and security contractor headquartered in McLean, Va., Simmons recently found time to act in the names of Huey and Carr.

“One day at work, a couple of months ago, I thought, ‘This is the day I’m going to do it,’” Simmons said. “Today I’m going to send an email to (Chet) Gladchuk.’”

His message to the Academy’s athletic director led to the words that follow, about two men whose college choices are watersheds in the 131-year history of Navy football.

Calvin Windell Huey grew up in Pascagoula, Miss. He was 19 years old when U.S. Marshals were ordered to his home state to enforce a federal court order allowing black student James Meredith to enroll at the University of Mississippi.

Influenced by uncles who schooled him in math, and a mother who enrolled him in summer programs at Historically Black Colleges, Huey was a gifted student. He was especially interested in science, specifically chemistry.

“My hope after high school was to go the University of Chicago, Ohio State or Wisconsin,” Huey recently said from his Annapolis home, before laughing. “Unfortunately, I didn’t know you needed money to go to those schools.”

He attended Tuskegee briefly, but left to join a friend at Oakland City College in California. Leaving the segregated South to go West, Huey was eventually lured East.

At Oakland, he was honorable mention junior college All-America as a quarterback. Recognizing Huey’s aptitude and athleticism, a friend suggested he pursue a service academy appointment.

Huey contacted Mississippi representatives. As you’d expect, he was immediately denied. One congressman, he remembers, reasoned that he didn’t want Huey “to be a stain on Mississippi.”

Undeterred, he instead got a California representative to nominate him; not as a football recruit, but solely on his own accord. In fact, Huey says he had no contact with Navy’s coaching staff before trying out for the team as a plebe.

Contrastingly, Emerson Frank Carr was being courted by all three academies, and numerous other programs, while enrolled at Central High in Minneapolis.

“I was the biggest guy on our team,” says the 6-foot-3 Carr, whose media guide bio listed him as a 235-pound defensive end entering his senior season with the Mids. “And I’m proud to say, also the fastest. I used to beat our receivers in wind sprints.”

West Point, which wouldn’t suit up its first African-American player until 1966, was the first to call on Carr. But yearning to fly, he was more interested in the Naval Academy.

A year after Huey reached Annapolis, Carr followed, becoming the first black Minnesotan to attend a service academy.

Hailing from the North Country, Carr makes light of his mostly pale surroundings in the Twin Cities.

“I went to what was considered a predominantly black school in Minneapolis, (but only) 20 percent of the students were black kids,” Carr says, before showing off his sense of humor. “You could also say the non-Scandinavians were the minorities. I thought the whole world was made up of Andersons and Johnsons.”

Regardless, Minnesota was very progressive. Unlike the city of Annapolis, where public schools remained segregated until 1966, more than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education. Carr found certain restaurants and movie theaters off limits.

On the other hand, Huey was accustomed to such racial demarcations. Sitting below the Mason-Dixon Line, Annapolis was, he remembers, “very much like Mississippi.”

Huey makes the comparison absent the slightest tinge of bitterness or resentment. Same goes for Carr.

Though outside the Academy, the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum. Inside, Huey and Carr were simply trying to succeed as midshipmen.

“The March on Washington took place during my plebe summer,” Huey recalls. “I didn’t know it occurred until a year after.”

That’s because he concerned himself only with what he needed to know to satisfy the demands of upperclassmen. If skin color subjected either to extra harassment, neither was aware of it.

Huey actually thinks he had it easier than most by trying out and making the basketball team, as well as the football squad. Sports enabled him to dine with teammates, instead of answering to older shipmates.

“I think I pretty much had a free ride by being an athlete,” he says. “I wasn’t dumped on as much as other midshipmen because I was playing sports. I had no trouble until the end of the year, because I ate at the training table for football and basketball. I joke that I had a two-week plebe year.”

More than likely, fellow mids simply reciprocated the way Huey conducted himself.

“It was important for me to be as respectful as possible,” he says, “and try to be an exemplary midshipman and person.”

“I don’t think I was treated differently than anyone else,” adds Carr, who was too busy making history to consider his place in it. “After the fact, one of the things you became aware of is being a trailblazer.

“The people who really pulled me through are my classmates. My classmates treated me like one of them.”

Coaches did too, namely three assistants. Carr remains thankful for the tutelage of Carl Schuette; the way Lee Corso “took (him) under his wing;” and the equal-opportunity demands of Steve Belichick.

To Belichick, the only time to see anything as black or white was on the practice field. Things were either done right or wrong; no in-between. But there was one problem that still causes Carr to chuckle: Belichick could be too indiscriminate. Sometimes, players couldn’t distinguish among themselves.

“Steve had the ability to look at the entire field and see everyone at the same time,” Carr explains. “He was the linebackers coach. He would be yelling at someone during practice, but we weren’t sure who he was yelling at. You couldn’t tell from his eyes. We’d turn to each other as players and ask, ‘Who’s he talking to? Was that you or me he was talking to?’”

There was little to nitpick about Carr. In Navy’s 1968 media guide, Schuette said Carr had “exceptional talent, speed and quickness…all the attributes to be one of the East’s leading defenders.” His words held true when Carr was invited to the East-West Shrine Game.

Meanwhile, Huey was singled out in his senior-year bio for “poise under fire,” as “an outstanding pass receiver and determined downfield blocker.” Though a quarterback at heart, he moved to receiver to become a catching complement to the passing of Roger Staubach.

In the autobiography Staubach: First Down, Lifetime to Go, the ’63 Heisman Trophy winner wrote: “Calvin Huey was just the kind of guy you liked. He had a great personality, worked hard in football and was an intelligent guy.”

Smart in the classroom, Huey was also savvy on the field.

Shrewd enough, at least, to improvise what for a fleeting moment or two had the makings of one of Staubach’s most memorable plays.

Facing a late deficit vs. Maryland in 1964, Huey subbed for one of Staubach’s favorite targets, Skip Orr. As the clock eclipsed the 3:00 mark, Huey caught a 10-yard touchdown pass for the lead.

“I actually called that play,” Huey says. “Roger would sprint out to the right and the Maryland defense would flow with him. I suggested he do a half roll, and throw back to me.”

Unfortunately, in the immediate aftermath, Ken Ambrusko’s 101-yard kickoff return lifted the Terrapins to a 27-22 victory.

“On the ensuing kickoff, my classmate Bob Havasy fell and hurt his knee,” Huey says of his good friend. “Whenever I see him, I joke that I would have been a hero if he hadn’t gotten hurt.”

Punchlines aside, Huey was already heroic. Not by making touchdowns, but by creating touchstones for future generations.

The following year, as a junior in his final season of eligibility, he became the first African-American to take the field at Georgia Tech. Though Navy fell, 37-16, Huey’s monumental afternoon in Atlanta was incident free. Interestingly, the only insults he remembers hearing in a game were hurled much farther to the North, at Penn State.

Likewise, there were times Carr stood apart from teammates and opponents alike.

“We played at a number of Southern schools,” he says. “Often I was the only black player on the field. It’s not something you think about while you’re playing.”

Only decades later. Like when Huey reflects on the game he cherishes most as a Midshipman.

“Army was the most incredible experience,” says Huey, despite the apparent emptiness of a loss and a tie in two varsity appearances opposite an arch rival. “It was the shortest game of my life. It goes so fast.

“I think the Army-Navy game is the thing I’m most proud of. You’re on the field and you know that countless eyes are looking at you.”

Imagine what it must have been like seeing Navy’s lonesome end in America’s game. Especially for people still denied basic rights

Less than a year earlier, states ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing payment of poll or other taxes intended to marginalize blacks during federal elections. Just five months earlier, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And fewer than four months earlier, the bodies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were found buried together; weeks after they disappeared while protesting, as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

“There was a lot going on in the 60s in the Civil Rights Movement,” says Carr, who originally was a year behind Huey but later spent another full year away. “I went to Annapolis before black people could vote in Mississippi.”

And now, if you will, picture the misguided congressman worried about Huey leaving a stain on the state of his birth. How might he react were he to learn what became of Huey? Or, for that matter, someone like Carr?

They are men of distinction less for what they did as football players than for what they’ve accomplished since.

Huey graduated in 1967, and was eventually assigned to the USS Perry in Mayport, Fla. Before long, he deployed on the first of his two tours of Vietnam. He then continued his education until earning a Ph.D. in Chemistry.

In 1973, he joined the faculty at the Naval Academy, combining classroom instruction with coaching what’s now known as ‘sprint football.’ Back in Huey’s day, it was ‘lightweight’ or ‘150’ ball. By any name, he thoroughly enjoyed it.

After his third year back, former teammate Tom Leiser persuaded Huey to join him at IBM. He remained with Big Blue until 1997, when health problems resulted in a kidney transplant. Fourteen years later, Huey’s nephew donated a kidney for a second transplant.

Carr also has endured health problems since transitioning seamlessly from military service to civilian success.

He fulfilled his lifelong goal to fly, piloting an A-6 Intruder and C-130 Hercules in the Marine Corps. Among his closest friends is ex-squadron mate Major General Charles Bolden, USMC. Bolden graduated from the Naval Academy in 1968, 41 years before becoming NASA Administrator.

An engineer, Carr retired as a Captain and joined General Motors in 1984. In year six, he was promoted to global operations manager for the company’s subsidiary AC Spark Plug, overseeing more than 4,000 employees in North America and Europe.

Much of Carr’s post-military life was spent in Michigan, though he briefly lived in England, where he also studied at Oxford. But by 2004, he moved to Silver Spring, Md. and was a partner in a consulting firm.

Back in the Detroit area on business, Carr was driving to an early-morning meeting when his vehicle was hit by a semi-trailer.

“It was,” he says, “as serious as it gets.”

For two months Carr was on a ventilator. His rehab continued for weeks thereafter, only to be set back significantly by a staph infection. He suffered multiple heart attacks, received a pacemaker and redoubled his rehabilitation program.

However grave his situation, Carr fought through it. At one point, his doctor at the Beaumont Trauma Center in Royal Oak, Mich. approached Carr’s wife, Anita, to detail her husband’s background. According to Carr, his medical team was astounded that he survived.

“‘He’s been trained to fight and survive,’” says Carr, repeating the doctor’s line upon learning of the Marine’s remarkable career. “‘That’s the reason he’s going to make it.’

“Going to the Naval Academy and being in the Marine Corps can have that impact. It impacts you in ways you don’t realize.”

One of the ways most obvious to both Huey and Carr is the ceaseless support each receives from classmates, as he wages his battle against health problems. For Carr, the fight includes a bout with lung cancer.

“The Naval Academy creates bonds that last for a lifetime,” says Carr.

They include ties to successors such as Tuani, who expresses a desire to learn more about the men who opened the door for African-American players in Annapolis.

“I definitely would like to find out more, knowing the adversity those guys had to face,” Tuani says. “They didn’t let it bother them…Nothing could have told those men to quit. I couldn’t imagine not being able to hang out with my friends in public places.”

Not so long ago, the idea of a black kid from Mississippi attending the Naval Academy was unimaginable too. Except to Calvin Huey.

“It makes me proud,” Huey says. “I don’t brag about, I cherish it. My wife (Deborah) brags about it.”

Chuckling, Huey describes how he is is still recognized in Pascagoula. There’s a Hall of Fame inside the technical school that replaced his old high school. He’s included, of course; a plaque there denotes his Academy achievement.

Both Huey and Carr came to Annapolis seeking a higher education, and willing to answer a higher calling to a country whose citizens stood on uneven ground.

By attaining the former and fulfilling the latter, they did their part to impact the Civil Rights Movement in ways they probably didn’t realize at the time. All these years later, it’s about time we all realize it.

“Every African-American my age was affected by Martin Luther King and the struggles of people who died, like four little girls in church on a Sunday morning,” says Carr, alluding to the Sept. ’63 bombing of a Birmingham church. “You have to be impacted (by that). I wasn’t riding the bus, but I was doing something other black people weren’t doing.”

“In a very small way, yeh,” Huey replied, his voice breaking up, after being asked if he made a difference for other African-Americans. ”It gave people hope they could do the same thing.”

By Bob Socci

Originally published in Navy vs. Southern Miss Gameday Program (October 8, 2011). 

The answer is self-deprecating, the words spoken over a steady track of his own laughter.

John Dowd was asked to assess his overall performance to date.  He is three games into his senior season, really just beginning his second year as starting right guard for the Naval Academy.

“I don’t do things very pretty,” Dowd says, a chuckle suggesting that he’s revealing a means to survival more than describing any style of play.  “I’m not very graceful but I get them done.”

To illustrate what he means, Dowd sets the scene from one of the late August afternoons leading up to the 2010 opener against Maryland.  Blocking to solidify his space on the Midshipmen’s offensive line, he engages a defensive counterpart.

Simultaneously, Dowd grapples with some suddenly non-adhesive athletic tape.  He is trying to keep his balance and use his leverage.  But the tape, once wrapped tightly to support his ankles and wrists, is unraveling right there on the practice field as Dowd does his best not to come undone.

He recreates the scene in his Staten Island English, which is its own sound, distinct from Brooklynese or any other dialect spoken in the five boroughs of New York City.  To finish his anecdote and complete his point, Dowd wants to share the line his position coach utters as the play — and all that tape — unfolds.

However, he’s smart enough to recognize his own limitations; few as they are, as you’ll soon discover.  It’s one thing for Dowd to simply repeat what Navy assistant Ashley Ingram has to say.  And quite another for someone raised between the Goethels and Verrazano-Narrows Bridges to try to replicate the native sound of Iron City, Ga.

“Coach Ingram has a strong accent,” Dowd prefaces, again with a laugh.  “I’m not going to try to do it.”

Then he delivers Ingram’s punch line — the coach’s words in his voice — to a play that ended with the 6-foot-4, 260-pound Dowd tripping.

“(Coach) was like, ‘That’s how you come off the ball!’’ Dowd says, his voice at least mimicking Ingram’s excitement.  “‘You stay low, you got stuff falling off you, and you plant him!  Then you go talk smack with your thick New York accent.’  I think that’s a pretty good way to describe how I play.”

Center Brady DeMell, who’s started every game alongside Dowd since the beginning of last fall, offers his own account of Dowd’s modus operandi.

“He’s an old school kind of player,” says DeMell, likening his pal’s on-field appearance to the grit captured on the grainy celluloid of NFL Films back in the 1960s.  “He’ll do whatever he can to get the job done.  Sometimes he makes a fantastic block, but sometimes he just puts his body in position to get the job done.”

Unlike Ingram’s summation, DeMell’s lacks any mention of extracurricular commentary.  If you believe Dowd, truth is most of the time he’s the one receiving rather than giving an earful.

“Probably every game we’re winning,” Dowd says of the frequency of trash talk crossing the neutral zone from defenders cut blocked down to size by the typically-smaller Midshipmen.  “You hear a lot of interesting stuff about that, like ‘Why don’t you block me like a man?’ or other things of that nature.

“But as long as we’re scoring touchdowns, that’s good enough for me.  I usually don’t say much on the field, and actually I didn’t say anything to that one.”

A good thing for his opponent, who was likely to be outwitted as well as outmuscled.

Dowd is easily one of the brightest players in college football, with the near-perfect grades to prove it.  Twice in his first three years in Annapolis, he was selected Academic All-America by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

After Second Team honors as a sophomore used mostly in reserve, Dowd was named to the First Team as a full-time starting junior.  The last Midshipman chosen First Team Academic All-America was Ted Dumbauld in 1980.

No course load is cake at the Academy; but what makes Dowd’s distinction especially impressive is that he’s earned a 3.92 grade-point average majoring in Mechanical Engineering.  This semester alone he carries 16 credits in classes ranging from (Nuclear) Reactor Physics to Introductory Economics.  Safe to say, Dowd is at low risk of contracting senioritis.

Still, one’s academic aptitude often remains independent of what coaches call a ‘Football IQ.’

“They are two totally different things,” Ingram explains.  “One, you sit and memorize and learn things.  (The other), people are moving in space.  A lot of guys can do it on paper, but when you put them in the situation (on field), maybe they freeze up or don’t transition soon enough, so things are happening too fast.”

That, Ingram makes clear, is a non issue with Dowd.  Whether wearing a pocket protector or protecting the pocket, his intelligence translates and his toughness transcends.

“Obviously, John understands concepts,” says Ingram.  “He’s definitely one who can transition from the classroom and film study onto the playing field.”

Ingram illustrates how Dowd processes what he sees to aid in-game adjustments.

“When things start happening in the game, you ask, ‘John, what’s happening here?’” Ingram offers.  “He’ll say, ‘Well coach, their linebacker’s playing downhill, so maybe I need to do this,’ or ‘Their linebacker’s playing over the top, so maybe I need to do this.’

“I love coaching him.  Obviously, he’s a very smart young man, (but) he’s as tough as they come.  If you could line up 11 John Dowds on the field all the time, you’d feel confident that (they’re) going to know what to do and going to play as hard as (they) can.  He’ll do everything in his power to get the job done every single play.”

Backing up his statement, Ingram rattles off a list of injuries hampering Dowd, if not his performance, during his career.  Ingram works his way around the anatomy, from knee to hip to the latest, his hand.

Dowd fractured his right thumb at South Carolina.  To remain active on the O-line, he was fitted for a boxing glove layered in tape, presumably sticky enough to last a complete game, at least.

“John’s obviously a smart football player who epitomizes who we are: just a bunch of guys who come to work,” says Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo, who notes that Dowd smoothly converted from tackle to guard and is adept at all three disciplines of blocking in an option offense — scoop, pull and base.  “He adds great chemistry and great confidence to our offensive line.”

Being tight upfront is imperative on any football team; even more so with the Midshipmen.

“The type of offense we run, you rely on getting double teams,” Dowd says.  “So you’re working with somebody 80 percent of the time, or some crazy odd number, because we like to get two of our smaller guys on one of their bigger guys.

“We basically have to play as one team inside the team.  If somebody’s not getting it done, it affects us all.  So we do take pride in our cohesiveness and the fact that we’re so tight.”

To foster such unity, Navy’s offensive linemen regularly meet on Thursdays at the Drydock Restaurant inside Dahlgren Hall.  A small break from their every-other-weekday routine, it’s a chance to hang out as long as a couple of hours.  In season, they also congregate on Fridays at the team hotel to kibitz while surfing televised games.

Sometimes, on either night, what brings them closer is picking each other apart.  But in a good way.

“It’s all fun between us.  It keeps you sane at this place,” says DeMell, indicating that Dowd has the thick skin one expects of a New Yorker.  “We take shots at John, but he takes it well.  We all spend a lot of time together.  We know we can’t let each other down.”

Often, from both inside and outside his social circles, Dowd hears about the spots he and his parents appeared in the last two years for CBS Sports.  Produced as preludes to Army-Navy telecasts, they were moving portrayals of the young men who play at West Point and Annapolis.

Commonly referred to as “teases,” they are viewable on-line.  As you’ll discover should you take the time to Google the 2009 piece in particular, Dowd set the stage for Army-Navy with four words that, well, live in infamy:  Let’s get it on!

“I’ve gotten that quite a bit the last two years,” Dowd says of his line, scripted for him to conclude a vignette narrated by Harrison Ford.  “To put it lightly, I’ve had a lot of people ask me to do it.  I kind of cringe every time I hear it.”

Yet, in the preceding three minutes, his mother, Kathy, emerges as a most memorably likable figure.  Joined by her husband, Thomas Dowd, she speaks poignantly of her son, his comrades and their counterparts.

“Remember their names, remember their faces,” Kathy Dowd says to America.  “Oh John Dowd, I am so proud of you!”

In quick-cutting clips, she animatedly — with hands and voice — describes the game’s pageantry.

“It’s enough to take your breath away,” Kathy proclaims.

And then she proceeds to do the same.  Two and a half minutes in, wearing John’s No. 68 Jersey and propped up on a railing, with Thomas in front and the Manhattan skyline behind her, Kathy pumps her arms chanting:  Fire up! Fire up!

Seconds later, Kathy Dowd, daughter of a Marine and a nurse who served four years in the Army, is seen doing textbook-form military push-ups.

“It was great,” John says.  “That’s just my mom being herself.  She’s always had that much energy and that much life to her, so I really can’t picture having a mom that’s any other way.

“My teammates will joke about the video sometimes, especially the corny stuff they sometimes make you say.  But I think on the whole everybody appreciates the fact that she’s willing to put herself out on national TV for us, and help us represent ourselves to the nation.”

His coaches certainly do.

“I don’t know (his parents) that well, but we all know his mom,” says Ingram.   “He doesn’t fall far from the tree.  It’s pretty obvious where he gets his toughness.  His dad was a career police officer in New York City and his mom, obviously, she’s a spark plug.  There’s no doubt about that.”

“What’s not to love about the Dowds?” Niumatalolo asks rhetorically.  “They’re great Americans.  They did a great job raising their son, with all the characteristics you look for in someone.  Seeing his mother do those push-ups, you see that energy translated into John.  He plays a thousand miles an hour.”

As Ingram mentioned, Dowd’s dad retired as one of New York’s Finest.  A number of relatives also serve among New York’s Bravest.  They, like so many other members of NYPD and FDNY, settled on Staten Island.

There were few communities in the country more personally impacted and heartbroken by the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  More than 270 Staten Island residents were killed on that Tuesday morning in 2001.

All of which made Thomas and Kathy Dowd’s child, and a son of Staten Island, the perfect choice of teammates to lead the Mids into last year’s matchup with Georgia Southern, on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.  He charged across the field, carrying an American flag once was raised over Ground Zero and flown over special operations bases in Afghanistan.

“To put it into a few words, would definitely not do it justice,” Dowd said.  “Obviously, the community I’m from was devastated.  But I was fortunate enough not to lose anybody in my immediate family.

“I’m very proud I can do those things, and maybe help some of my friends or people I know from back home who did lose somebody.  They’re the ones, ultimately, who suffered the most.  Anything I can do to help them heal, that’s really how I try to approach it.”

Only 11 years old in September 2001, Dowd was already contemplating his own call to service, influenced by both parents and his grandfather, Bill Marsh.

“I thought (military duty) would be part of growing up,” he says.  “I thought that since I was really young.  (9/11) didn’t change that, it just magnified how important doing that was.”

Years later, when college coaches began recruiting him out of St. Peter’s Boys High School, Dowd considered service academies his top choices.

“When I started getting letters from colleges in high school, I told my coach I want to send my (highlight) tape to the service academies,” says Dowd, who became valedictorian of his class.  “I wanted to make sure it got there first.”

Coincidentally — and fortunately for the Midshipmen — Dowd’s cousin was about to graduate from the Naval Academy the same spring he was set to leave St. Peter’s.  He visited Annapolis for a family-guided tour.

“I loved everything about the place,” Dowd says in retrospect.  “It was definitely a place where I could see myself flourishing and doing well.”

Dowd was clairvoyant.  Although saying he has flourished in his three-plus years here is an exercise in gross understatement.

He is poised to be Navy’s first two-time First Team Academic All-American and is officially a candidate to succeed the Mids’ own Ricky Dobbs as the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award recipient.  Dowd downplays the former and, for now, ignores the latter.

Playing for a winning team, he believes, probably separated him from deserving Midshipmen during the 29 years the Academy went without a First Team Academic All-American from 1981-2009.  Anyway, Dowd’s preoccupied and unconcerned with end-of-the-year accolades.

“It’s really an honor to do that for an institution that’s given a lot to me, and helped me to grow up in a lot of ways,” Dowd says of his national recognition.  “(But) I really try not to think about that kind of stuff.  I’m really a ‘try to focus on the small things, and the big things will take care of themselves’ kind of guy.”

That’s exactly how Dowd views his work in the classroom and on the field.  He stays in the moment.  Of course, those moments add up.

“Even though I spent almost two hours with seven guys in Drydock last night, the three hours afterwards I was doing Heat Transfer and Design homework,” said Dowd, citing a recent sampling of the time he devotes to studies.  “I wouldn’t say it’s as simple as hard work, but it’s almost as simple.”

“I’m a history major and seeing what John does every day, I don’t know how he does it,” DeMell adds.  “I have to be in bed by eleven.  John’s up late most nights.  If you’re averaging a 3.0 (GPA) here, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

Dowd also attributes his near straight-A success to the accessibility of Academy faculty, both civilian and military, who view the role of a professor as that of a teacher.

“You also have to know when you’re in over your head,” he instructs.  “I think I’ve done well with that, knowing when to get help.  I’m not wasting my time, and time is, obviously, a very precious resource here.”

That time is winding down.  In little more than a month, Dowd will undergo his service selection interview.  He hopes it leads in the next year to a career as a submariner, an interest confirmed last summer during a brief pre-commission cruise on the California (SSN 781).

“I really liked that atmosphere, just how close-knit everybody was,” Dowd explained.  “It kind of felt like the team a bit, like with the guys I play O-line with.  Obviously, some of them were a little bit nerdier but I’m kind of a nerd myself.  I don’t think it will be too much of a stretch for me to fit in there.”

Surely it shouldn’t be for an individual who just might be the toughest guy on the block and the smartest guy in the room.

“He will get in scraps on the field,” Niumatalolo says of Dowd, “but he’s a gentleman and a scholar off it.”

Bob is in his 15th season calling radio play-by-play of Navy football.  He can be heard alongside partner Omar Nelson on Saturday, Oct. 22, when the Midshipmen entertain East Carolina, on the Navy Radio Network and Sirius Satellite Radio.  For samples of his work, please visit. www.bobsocci.com.

By Bob Socci

Originally published in Navy Gameday Program on September 3, 2011.

Backs to the Severn River, the young women were perfectly erect, their eyes fixed on the flag lowered to half mast. Facing them, about 80 yards away, rows of bleachers were filled with empty spaces.

In a more inviting time, which is to say until six days ago, the stands would have looked so different. Then, until six days ago, everything was different.

This was Monday, Sept. 17, 2001. They were about to play a soccer game.

It would be the first since the understanding of what they were doing at the Naval Academy was crystallized when terrorists attacked the United States on the morning of Tuesday the 11th.

Their opponent was George Washington. The Colonials were supposed to be in Annapolis over the weekend for Navy’s tournament. Like countless other events, from Major League Baseball to the NFL to the NCAA, it was never held.

Now, GW was finally here, but only after passing through Academy gates barricaded by sandbags and defended by armed Marine guards. Aside from the Colonials, no other non-Academy personnel were allowed in; not in this military state of THREATCON CHARLIE.

That’s why the head coach of the Midshipmen, Carin Gabarra, remembers just two people — literally, two people — sitting in the stands during warmups.

“It was kind of eerie, because in those years we usually packed the stands quite regularly,” Gabarra said recently, on the verge of her 19th season at Navy. “Having nobody there all of a sudden, with no one being able to drive on or off, it was a completely different atmosphere.”

Eventually, scores of midshipmen would show up in dress whites to support their soccer team. But first Gabarra stood alongside assistant Rob Blanck behind Navy’s players for the national anthem.

For a decade straight, Gabarra wore her country’s colors, earning more than 100 caps in international play. She’d been at attention for The Star-Spangled Banner as a World Cup champion and Olympic Gold Medalist, not to mention all the times in all her years coaching the Mids.

“One of the biggest parts of playing for your country is the national anthem before games. It’s something very special,” Gabarra explains. “It reminds you and those around you that you are playing for your country.

“The playing of the national anthem is something I’m sure every player will never forget. That’s what kind of brought our country together. We still looked at that flag, we were still all American…there was a huge significance in the fact that the stands were empty, but we played the national anthem, nonetheless.”

Megan Thomas, then a sophomore known by her maiden name, Megan Weller, sensed the same.

“From day one, we went out and were proud to be wearing Navy across our uniforms,” Thomas said. “That game, we were so much more proud. There was nothing else to do but think about why we were here, while listening to the national anthem. It meant so much more, almost (sending) shivers down your spine.”

Prior to 9/11, plebe Claire Henry could tell you why she was here; but she didn’t fully comprehend it.

“When I went to the Academy I had some idea of what it meant, that I was going to serve in the military afterwards,” Henry said. “But I just think as an 18-year-old freshman, you don’t really get what all that means. When (the attacks) happened, it really did change for everybody our understanding of why we were at the Academy.

“At the end of this (experience), that’s really what it means to go to the Naval Academy and what it means to pursue a career afterwards in the military.”

As a haze of shock and sadness hung over the country, Americans were clearly outraged and resolute. Whatever the country’s response, wherever it led, our citizen soldiers would be there. For the first time since Vietnam, really, classes of midshipmen were certain they were graduating to go off to war.

Like Thomas, Henry had yet to sign her “2 for 7” papers. At a service academy, one has two years before committing to two more years of schooling, and at least five years of active duty service.

Neither reconsidered. Years later, Gabarra couldn’t recall a single underclassmen on the ’01 Mids ever approaching her about leaving.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“I made a commitment to go there, and I really did love everything about the Naval Academy. Of course, I’ve probably forgotten all the bad parts,” Henry chuckled. “It never really crossed my mind that, ‘Oh, maybe this is something I don’t want to do.’ It was kind of like, ‘Okay, this is really what it means, and this is something I want to do.’”

The former Erin Kelly, now Erin Timmons, was a senior bound for the Marine Corps. An Irish Catholic, she had plenty of relatives in the New York City fire department. Home was North Jersey, in the shadows of the Twin Towers.

“I just wanted to go out and do my job, and do it well,” said Timmons, who stood watch the night of 9/11. “I knew I would be one of the first ones (deployed).”

One of GW’s coaches, an assistant who tried to recruit Timmons, knew too.

“She gave me a big hug, shook my hand and said, ‘There’s no one better for the job,’” Timmons recounts; it was the type of reaction she would continuously encounter. “During the national anthem, the other teams looked at us differently.

“We though of ourselves differently. We were proud of what we were doing. It was always a competition, but they had the utmost respect for us.”

Games they play have always given midshipmen an escape from the stress and strain of academics and military training. On this night and throughout the fall, soccer became cathartic for more than just those playing it.

“(The soccer field) is where we were happiest,” Timmons says. “We worked hard, but we were out there with our best friends. What makes us happy is what makes us more normal, being out on the soccer field.”

“One of the ways a lot of people have dealt with major tragedies is through the good times of sports and through meaningful experiences with sports,” Gabarra summarizes. “We tried to think of a way we, representing not just the Naval Academy but all who serve in our military, could support them and give them something else to think about.”

Gabarra left that greater purpose unsaid. She never addressed the backdrop to, or the emotions of the Mids’ return to the field.

“They all understood the significance and enormous scope of what was going on,” Gabarra explains. “I think everybody kind of handles that stuff in their own way. We all collectively knew that what we were going to do may be very important for our program, for all those that played before us and all those that may come after us. Of course, (that included) the military, the school and everyone else involved.”

Ten years later, the minutiae of that night is lost on its participants. For the record, Navy beat GW, 2-0. It was Henry’s long pass, nearly 33 minutes in, that set up Katie Eames for the game’s first goal.

What resonates are the feelings for those who shared the experience.

More important than freshman Kate Macfarlane recording her first shutout is her choice to join them in the first place. Halfway through her career at a civilian school in the Big East, Rutgers, she started over at the Academy. A rare transfer, Macfarlane went on to the Marine Corps infantry.

The fact that Stacy Finley scored the evening’s second goal, eventually to become the Mids’ all-time points leader, matters little; that she was taken from them far too soon, in March 2005, means everything. Not quite a year removed from graduation, Finley contracted viral encephalitis, which led to severe inflammation of the brain. She died less than a week later. She was 22.

Timmons isn’t one to forget; not Finley or her other fallen comrades.

She is now a captain in the reserves, raising two young children in a California community populated by military families. Husband, Marty, an Academy classmate, is again in harm’s way on one of the seven deployments the couple has combined to serve.

When she recently reflected on that mid-September night in 2001 and her life since, Timmons had just returned from visiting a veteran’s cemetery in San Diego.

“I’ve seen people I love go, and seen families torn up,” she said. “We go through it together.”

Timmons has been to Iraq and back twice. Each time on a nine-month tour.

“We were in a very rough area,” she says of her first deployment. “We lived in tents in small little bunkers. We were mortared every day. I would go to sleep with my boots on, my weapon next to me and my flak jacket over me to protect my vital organs from shrapnel.”

There were no showers for a month. Almost nothing about her new life resembled the one she left behind. One of the few constants was something she’d kicked around since childhood.

“A soccer ball over there will attract anybody and everybody,” says Timmons.

And so, in addition to passing out candy to children in her effort to win hearts and minds, Timmons helped generate an equipment drive. She collected cleats, jerseys and balls donated from contacts in the States, including Gabarra and Blanck.

“It got to a point where every time we got a new shipment of soccer gear,” Timmons says, “my (commanding officer) would ask, ‘What did you get?’”

One afternoon, on a dusty plot of land near Iskandariyah, Timmons reconnected with that first love in a pick-up game against locals. Instead of bleachers, the makeshift field was surrounded by armored vehicles. She was a long way from the manicured pitch of Navy’s Glenn Warner Soccer complex.

Her uniform was camouflage, protected by Kevlar. Timmons removed her helmet, and Iraqi men discovered a woman was in their midst playing soccer. For her, they were willing to suspend cultural mores.

Henry, who followed Timmons into the Corps and into Iraq, had similar experiences. She often played on base in Fallujuah against native interpreters and construction workers.

“It was interesting, because I was usually the only girl who would play,” Henry fondly remembers. “I would always ask, ‘Do your sister or other girls play?’ And they would always say, ‘No, no, no. That’s disgraceful. But you’re okay!’”

She also gathered up soccer gear, including jerseys sent by her mother from their home in Massachusetts.

“It was really cool because you could interact with people you wouldn’t otherwise,” Henry expounds. “When I went out on patrols, I’d give them to kids. They really liked it.”

“Those basic human interactions, I know (they) gave me a different idea of what people are like there. The culture is very, very different, obviously. But when you’re playing soccer, it’s very much the same.”

Unaware at the time, Henry was also learning to prepare for a future tour. As a 27-year-old captain in the spring of 2010, she deployed to the Helmund Province of Afghanistan to command 40 female soldiers. Part of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, their innovative mission was to interact in small units with Afghan women. Doing so, they learned villagers’ needs, while gleaning intelligence.

“I was really lucky to have that background, because it really helped me to steer what training we needed before we went there. It was still very new,” Henry said. “People are very much the same, but it was still very, very different in Afghanistan. The places that the Marines went were almost like Middle Ages or Biblical times with how people lived; in mud huts and with no contact outside of the home, especially for the women.”

Henry is now in Washington, D.C., an Olmstead Scholar preparing to study in Romania next year.

“The purpose is to build more well-rounded officers that not only appreciate other cultures, but truly try to understand them and see the world as that group of people sees the world,” says Henry, who will pursue a master’s in Liberal Arts.

Meanwhile, Thomas has returned to Annapolis, as a Navy lieutenant teaching in the Academy’s Oceanography department. Married to Capt. Russell Thomas, USMC, she is a couple of hours by car from her hometown of Richmond, Va.

Her parents used to make that drive all the time, to tailgate and watch their daughter play soccer. Except for the night the Midshipmen hosted George Washington 10 years ago.

“I haven’t thought about that game in a long time,” Thomas said this summer, a few minutes before picking-up her two daughters from daycare. “It’s come full circle, being here on 9/11 and being here when Osama bin Laden was killed.”

Thomas had once worked with Navy SEALs, providing weather intel to aid their training. Perhaps any one or some of those she assisted took part in the May raid on Abbottabad that killed the Al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind.

“It makes me proud to have that in my background,” says Thomas, equally proud of her current role. “It’s really unique where I am. A lot of senior officers get to come back, (but) I was at the Naval Academy not that long ago. I can relate to what (the midshipmen) are going through. I try to remind them about the bigger picture.”

If only she can reach them the way Thomas and every other soccer alum touch Gabarra.

“I don’t think they realize how much they inspire me, what they go on to do and the kind of people they are,” Gabarra says. “They’re so driven, they’re smart and they’re good athletes. They’re trying to give back to the country. It’s hard not to respect everything they do.

“It’s the fabric of what they’re made of. I talk about them all the time. I’m very proud of them, I’m proud of who they’ve become. They go on to do some incredible things.”

Bob is in his 15th season calling play-by-play of Navy football. He can be heard on Sirius Channel 134 at 7 p.m. Saturday, September 10, when the Midshipmen visit Western Kentucky. For samples of his work, please visit www.bobsocci.com.

By Bob Socci

Originally posted on navysports.com August 26, 2011.

The jam session, as he calls it — one song actually, repeating itself, over and over — is underway. Music courses from the iPod in his left hand, his right hand extends and Alexander Teich begins his rounds.

With wrists wrapped in black tape, matching the streaks of grease across his cheekbones, Teich passes each stall and reaches out to as many teammates as possible. Here in this locker room at the brand new home of Jets and Giants, he renews a pre-game ritual.

Kickoff between Navy and Notre Dame is moments away and Teich wants fellow Midshipmen to understand how much they mean to him. There’s a whole lot of brotherly love to go around.

Of course, Teich has no idea how his gestures will be reciprocated in subsequent months, when teammates will elect him captain for 2011. Here’s what he does know in this hour on October 23, 2010: without many of them — specifically, his prep school classmates — he wouldn’t be here.

There’s something else Teich knows. He’s been convinced of it for days. And it’s being confirmed by the looks he now gets in return.

“I just had a feeling that week in practice,” Teich will say a year later. “I got in the locker room and saw the guys’ faces. You could just tell, everybody was ready to go.”

Circling the room and listening to a loop of Requiem for a Dream, he senses that the premonition he shared a short time ago is about to come true.

“It’s something I actually talked about with my mom before I got to the stadium,” Teich will confirm. “I said, ‘Today is going to be a great day. We’re going to make some history.’”

Alexander Teich prefers to be known by his given name, rather than Alex for short. It’s out of respect for parents Jacqueline and Patrick, who gave him much more than an identity.

They raised him in the small Southeast Texas town of Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston, where they created an assisted living community on their 11 acres. It remains the family business.

The Teiches work around the clock tending to residents, many of whom are in hospice care. As kids, Alexander and his sisters each lent a hand. He also took to heart his youth surrounded by elders.

“I was always around, and it felt like I had 20 grandparents,” Alexander says. “Really, as a kid, I would just hang out there, and they would tell me stories and give me candy.”

His sweet tooth satisfied, Teich learned to savor something else.

“I saw how hard the work was,” he said. “To see my parents do that every day, that’s always driven me to try to do better in life, in school, on the field.”

He grew into a three-sport star at Caney Creek High School; as a shooting guard in basketball, a pro catching prospect in baseball and, especially, a running back in football.

Teich was county player of the year in 2006, leading the Panthers to the third round of the Class 4A football playoffs. On a single night opposite Bellaire, he accounted for 361 total yards, scored four touchdowns and was crowned Homecoming King.

But much to the dismay of his coach Glenn Hill, that wasn’t good enough for college recruiters. Whatever their reasoning — perhaps perceiving a lack of speed commensurate to Teich’s size — they mostly shied away.

Hill wasn’t about to let a stopwatch blind him from what he could see. A successful coach in San Antonio before moving to Caney Creek, he could judge for himself whether a kid had Division I goods.

Fortunately for Navy, assistant Danny O’Rourke listened to what Hill was saying. O’Rourke knew and respected Hill enough to include Caney Creek on his annual tour of roughly 120 Texas schools.

“(Coach Hill) told me that Teich is as good as he’s ever had,” O’Rourke recalls. “He said, ‘Danny, this kid’s not going to win a combine with his 40-yard dash time, but he’s the best I’ve ever coached.’ I thought, if Coach Hill thinks he’s that good, I better start recruiting him.”

“Coach O’Rourke was really one of the first coaches who contacted me,” Teich remembers. “He came out to spring practice at the end of my junior year. I always felt loyal to him.

“Once I got up here on my official visit, I fell in love with the place.”

But Teich almost didn’t return.

Back in Conroe, his baseball team had already qualified for its first-ever state tournament appearance when Teich was involved in a collision at home plate. He suffered a hematoma on his left leg, and soon developed a staph infection.

After surgery, the leg became infected again, and Teich went back to the operating room. He missed the playoffs and was confined to a wheelchair on graduation day. For a kid O’Rourke describes as “tough as nails,” it was hard to take.

Life didn’t get any easier in the coming months.

Teich rebuilt the strength in his legs and reported to the Naval Academy Prep School (NAPS) in Newport, R.I., presumably for the academic year. In the fourth quarter of his first football game, he tore ligaments in his right thumb.

Eighteen-hundred miles from home, he was injured again. Admittedly, his schoolwork suffered. Teich wanted out. He processed his paperwork, purchased a plane ticket and packed his bags. On the eve of Thanksgiving break, Teich planned on leaving; he wasn’t coming back.

“It kind of seemed like the whole world was against me,” he remembered.

Teich soon discovered, it was quite the opposite.

Byron McCoy, a former Navy player assigned to NAPS as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, penned an impassioned letter, imploring Teich to stay. Classmate Doug Furman remembers it being a dozen pages long.

Furman and other team leaders staged an intervention. Taps had sounded on what was going to be Teich’s last night there. Risking demerits or worse, they went door-to-door, rounding up others, rousing many of them from their bunks.

In all, 30-to-40 teammates, including a few in their boxers, converged on Teich’s room. All for one, they told him: You’re not going anywhere.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” says Furman, now a senior receiver for the Mids. “We wanted to keep everybody together. You could see how guys bonded around Teich. Everybody loves the kid.”

Soon after, just before midnight, Teich picked up his phone.

“He called me at about 11:30 and said, ‘Coach, I think I made a mistake,” O’Rourke retells. “‘The guys won’t let me leave.’”

O’Rourke advised Teich to contact his commanding officer, express his feelings and seek another chance. He got it.

“My brothers pulled me up,” a grateful Teich says today.

It was a classic example of how midshipmen are expected to rally around a teammate they consider family. The resulting bonds are life-lasting, and life-changing.

“I see it today as that,” Furman said. “But three months into my military training, I had no idea what I was doing. Looking back, it was the kind of team building the military wants to incorporate. We just didn’t want to lose a good friend.”

A reinvigorated Teich rededicated himself. The only place he was going from that night forward was Annapolis. When he got here, though, a position change awaited. First thought to be a large slot back, Teich became a small fullback. Instead of the perimeter, he would run inside.

“Navy got spoiled with (Kyle) Eckel, (Adam) Ballard and (Eric) Kettani, the big, physical bruisers who all could run well,” fullbacks coach Mike Judge says of the three ex-Mids averaging 240 pounds. “(Teich) is a hybrid.”

Six-feet tall and 200 pounds as a plebe, Teich was quicker and faster than those past prototypes. He immediately took to his new role.

“I don’t like to run east and west. Fullback was more downhill,” he says, before joking, “I didn’t realize how much of a beating came with it. But it definitely fit my style a lot more.”

To refine that style, he attached himself to Kettani.

“My freshman year I was in his hip pocket everywhere he went on the field, trying to learn as much knowledge as I could about the game,” Teich said. “(Eric) taught me a lot more about the schemes and concepts, what defenses are trying to do. I learned a lot from him.

“And Coach Judge has been phenomenal. I had a lot of days in the offseason when I just met with him to look at plays and go over film. He wrote notes on the (video) screen so I could (learn from) them. He did a tremendous job of getting me ready when I was young.”

Teich appeared in 12 games in 2008, often deployed on kickoff returns. As a sophomore, he started at Ohio State, rushing for 61 yards. Two weeks later at Pittsburgh, Teich gained 80 yards. But in the season’s fifth game, he injured his ankle vs. Air Force.

Sidelined for two weeks, he watched junior Vince Murray seize his opportunity. Murray ended the fall by rushing for nearly 1,000 yards. Teich finished with 70 carries and 376 yards.

“It was definitely tough. It taught me a lot about growing up fast, and making the most of opportunities,” Teich says. “Vince did a great job. There’s nothing I can take away from him; I can’t be mad at him for that. All I can do is continue to prepare as if I was the starter, coming to work every day.

“I get a little upset when I hear guys complaining about their playing time. I didn’t want to go to Coach and ask, ‘Coach, why am I not playing?’ That’s not me, that’s not my character. Put your head down, work hard and earn what you get.”

Instead of sulking, Teich ignited a spark. No longer lead fullback, he reappeared on kickoffs and averaged 27.6 yards per return, including a 47-yarder vs. Missouri in the Texas Bowl. Teich showed who he was, and what he wasn’t.

“He’s as tough as it gets,” head coach Ken Niumatalolo insists. “I firmly believe that when we put him back on kickoff return, he completely changed our return game. The kickoff return guy — I don’t care how fast you are, I don’t care how elusive you are or how strong you are — you’ve got to be fearless. You’ve got to hit it, you’ve got to run and you can’t dance.

“You’ve got to, basically, see that hole and run through it and have the confidence that you can get through there before it closes. You can’t be scared.”

This too is no time to be scared, even though it seems like the ball is in the air forever.

Navy’s defense just denied Notre Dame on 4th-and-goal; Teich flipped the field with a 54-yard run; and it’s 3rd-and-5 at the Fighting Irish 31. Navy must convert to sustain the drive and maintain momentum.

When the Mids won at Notre Dame a year earlier, Murray was their brightest star. But, in a reversal of misfortune, he is now the injured fullback. Here in the Meadowlands, this is Teich’s moment to embrace.

He’s been ready for it all week, talked about it en route to the stadium, sensed it inside those locker room walls.

“When the role was flipped for Vince, the door was open and I had to make the most of my opportunity,” Teich will later reflect. “I think that preparing myself the season before, as if I was the starter, I understood the offense. I understood what (the coaches) were asking of me, so when it came my turn, I was ready to step in there and fill those shoes.”

“(Alexander’s) an absolute pleasure to coach. He really listens to what you’re trying to teach him,” Judge will say months later. “He competes against himself. He has the ability to drive himself to get better that separates him from others.

“His knowledge of the offense has grown remarkably. He puts himself in the right spot. He knows what offensive lineman is blocking for him.”

All of the above is evident in these few seconds that feel like an eternity, before the screen pass lobbed out of Ricky Dobbs’s right hand finds Teich’s right hand.

“It was a third down and I knew I had to get the first down, so when Ricky lofted that ball, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Oh my God, he threw this thing over my head,‘“ Teich will recreate. “After that great stop by our defense, I thought, ‘I can’t let this ball hit the ground, I have to catch it somehow.‘ So I reached up and luckily it just stuck in my hand.”

Leaning forward, Teich cannot reach any higher. Nor be left more vulnerable.

“I was expecting to get nailed as soon as I turned around, (but) I was hoping I would at least get a first down,” he will continue. “I looked up and saw some guys making great blocks; Josh Cabrall pancaked the outside linebacker. Then I saw some room and thought, ‘I might as well get into the end zone after that great catch.’”

Teich will laugh as he speaks those last two words. It was a great catch, only to be bested by the finish to the run that follows.

Left arm pressing the ball against his chest, Teich sprints to the Irish 3-yard line. Two defenders close — one from his right, one from his left, both aiming low. He plants his left foot and propels himself toward the end zone. He flips in mid-air and lands on a heavily-wrapped left shoulder; the same shoulder he injured two weeks ago at Wake Forest.

Fearless. Breathless. Those adjectives describe the most spectacular play of this sensational day.

“It was a lot of guys making plays in front of me that allowed me to be able to run and score that touchdown,” Teich will summarize, the following August.

The game is only 8 minutes, 55 seconds old, and the Mids have the lead for good. Already, Teich has caught a 31-yard pass and rushed three times for 59 yards.

Navy will win, 35-17. Teich will rush 23 more times, gaining 151 additional yards for a total of 210. In a series dating to 1927, no Midshipman has rushed for more. In an overall history dating to 1879, no Navy fullback — large or small — has rushed for more.

“The offensive line was on point all day, Ricky was doing a great job making reads, the A-Backs were blocking, the wide receivers were blocking and the defense was playing phenomenally,” Teich will conclude. “It was just a great day.”

More than a single catch-and-run, the overall body of Teich’s work gives Niumatalolo and his staff reason to rethink, if not recast the mold of Navy fullbacks.

“We’ve started to look at guys like Alexander now, the 220-pound guy who could be a one-back in a spread offense; big enough to block, athletic enough to catch a pass,” says Niumatalolo, after Teich rushed for 863 yards as a junior. “(He’s) a guy who’s very athletic and tough enough to run between the tackles. He’s obviously got the speed to run the ball on the edge and the strength and power to run inside.”

Niumatalolo calls Teich explosive and considers him “one of the strongest kids on the team, pound-for-pound,” the result of being “a weight-room freak.” Judge credits Teich with helping to evolve his position, observing that defenders “can’t get a lot of clean shots” at his now 217-pound frame.

Judge also helps explain why only a few years after prep school classmates showed Teich the way to Annapolis, they chose him to lead them in their final year together.

“He has unbelievable character,” Judge says. “One of the fiercest competitors I know.”

Teich may also be the most outwardly emotional and vocal Navy captain in recent memory.

“Everybody has their own style,” he says. “It’s who I am, it’s who I’ve been.”

“I think the guys understand that (Alexander) genuinely cares for his teammates,” says Niumatalolo. “The guys have really responded to his leadership.”

“When (he) tells you to do something,” adds Furman, “no one thinks twice about it.”

Teich isn’t just a talker, but a doer. And a listener.

He opened his ears at NAPS the night others poured out their hearts. He then opened his mind to a possibility he previously thought improbable.

For a time, Teich wanted to join special forces, until others persuaded him to reconsider. Too tough, they said, given the demands of your sport.

But last January a former player and longtime Navy SEAL spoke to the Midshipmen. That night, Teich’s earlier notion became his mission.

“I made up my mind, this is what I want to do,” said Teich, who worked out last summer with SEAL Team 4 in Little Creek, Va. “(The guest speaker) talked about the SEAL brotherhood and being part of the best. I feel like I’ve had a calling in life; a purpose not to be mediocre but to push myself to the limits and see how good I can be.”

So close to never finding out, he’s come awfully far in four years.

“Over the years, you understand why you’re here,” Teich says. “You grow with the bigger picture.

“I think you learn some of the best lessons to prepare yourself for the military on the football field. There are times you’re hurting and you have to keep pushing. Then there are guys you have to bring up when they’re down.”

Like in a dorm room in Newport. Or a locker room in New Jersey.

Bob is in his 15th season calling play-by-play of Navy football. He can be heard on Sirius Channel 134 at 7 p.m. Saturday, September 10, when the Midshipmen visit Western Kentucky. For samples of his work, please visit www.bobsocci.com.

‘Guys who get on the field for Navy are the guys who persevere,’ just like Mason Graham. By Bob Socci Originally posted on www.navysports.com on August 18, 2011. Ken Niumatalolo has seen it before.  How often is hard to say.  It invariably happens every fall.  Some years more than once. A senior who spent his first three seasons as an understudy, refusing to give in to circumstance or give up on himself, will finally ascend the depth chart, saving his best for last. “That definitely has been a trademark of our team,” says Niumatalolo, now in his 14th year overall at the Naval Academy and his fourth as its head football coach.  “Another coach here, a while back, said the guys who get on the field for Navy are the guys who persevere.” Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo. Two years ago he watched as Craig Schaefer, who previously toiled mostly in the near anonymity of special teams, made a name for himself at outside linebacker.  Last fall was Jerry Hauburger’s time for transformation, ironically enough as Schaefer’s successor. No one on the 2009 Midshipmen had more tackles for loss (8.5) than Schaefer.  His team-high six sacks included the game-deciding safety in a 23-21 win at Notre Dame.  From beginning to end of 2010, Hauburger was Navy’s most improved defender.  In addition to 5.5 tackles for loss, he forced three fumbles. Their career arcs were nearly identical.  Each slowly rose from junior varsity as a plebe to part-time duty the next two years — mainly specializing in covering kickoffs — to a full-time impact in his final go-around. Now it’s Mason Graham’s turn.  That same path, from obscurity to the outside linebacker also known as the Mids’ Raider, is about to be completed again.  It’s something Niumatalolo never tires of seeing. “Schaefer and Hauburger were primarily special teams guys,” Niumatalolo said.  “Schaefer came in and had a great year, and then Hauburger did basically the same thing, came in and had a great year.  Mason has been one of our best special teams players, and I’m hoping it holds true for him.”"That’s kind of been the mold at outside linebacker for a long time, especially at the Raider side,” says the senior Graham; he of 18 varsity appearances as a collegian.  “When I was a young gun, I remember watching (Schaefer and Hauburger) on film, always looking at their hands on pass rush and the effort that they gave. “Whenever I got out there (in practice), whether it was with the B’s or C’s when I was younger, I would always try to model (myself) after their effort and performance.  Hopefully, it will serve me well this year.” Graham has become an A-teamer by separating himself in a wide-open competition, stretching from April’s spring practice to August’s preseason camp. “I looked at it like, I’m going to do everything I can,” Graham said of his offseason attitude.  “I’m going to watch film of guys in the past, whether it’s Craig or Jerry, and I’m going to do all I can in the weight room during the spring and summer.  I’m going to go a hundred miles an hour on the field, and I’m going to let the chips fall where they will.  I can’t worry about the rest, I just have to play the best I can.” At Raider, Schaefer and Hauburger essentially enabled the Mids to vary their defensive front.  Both set up at times in a three-point stance, but also were positioned upright on the line of scrimmage.  On pass plays, they were flexible enough to rush the quarterback or drop back in coverage. “Raider’s a position where you have to be versatile,” says Graham, a high school teammate of defensive captain Jubaree Tuani at Brentwood (Tenn.) Academy.  “You’ve got to be able to run, but at the same time you’ve got to be able to hold your own against a 300-pound offensive lineman.” Senior Mason Graham. That’s exactly the rational Graham used to craft his offseason regimen. “I was trying to gain a little bit of weight, but not too much because I wanted to keep my speed,” he says, after adding roughly 10 pounds to what was a 6-foot, 205-pound frame.  “I’ve gotten stronger than I was in the spring.  I’ve (also) got to work on my footwork, and being physical at the point of attack.” Though Graham’s special teams experience fostered the mindset of a linebacker, he must now physically adjust to the difference between appearing occasionally and playing down after down after down. “Especially kickoffs, it’s the same mentality as linebacker,” Graham explains, metaphorically.  “You’ve got to get hyped up and go out there with an attitude that you’re going to take somebody’s head off every time you step on the field.  At linebacker, the only difference is that you’ve got to do it play after play after play. “I’m trying to work on my stamina and stay tough, so I can take a beating at linebacker and come back to the line of scrimmage and have that same mentality that I had on special teams last year, play after play.” Of course, it’s been done before.  And Graham, like Niumatalolo, has seen it with his own two eyes. “This has been a recipe that has been (working) at inside and outside backer for a long time,” says Graham, a couple of weeks away from Navy’s Sept. 3 opener vs. Delaware.  “Craig Schaefer had a great senior year, and he didn’t play very much until his senior year, except special teams.  Jerry Hauburger, same thing.  So, we’re pretty confident.  I guess we’ll find out here pretty soon.” MORE NEW RULES Of all the individuals associated with the NCAA, it’s hard to determine who had a busier summer: investigators probing into allegations of off-field improprieties or panel members empowered to amend on-field playing rules. The gumshoes hit the ground in Atlanta, Auburn, Columbus and Eugene, before heading for Coral Gables.  Meanwhile, rules makers did more rewrites than a room full of lawyers and politicians editing each other’s perception of reality. As addressed in this space the last two weeks, what is officially known as the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel stiffened the penalty for taunting and redefined when blocking below the waist is permissible.  Included among other measures regarding the definition and/or enforcement of infractions: The defensive team will be penalized five yards if three or more players try to overwhelm a single blocker on field goals and extra points.  Essentially, it prevents `ganging up’ to knock kicks down. When an offense is flagged during the final minute of a half, it can lose yardage and an additional 10 seconds off the game clock.  However, the opponent has the option of moving the offense back but declining the time runoff.  If, for example, the trailing team is on defense, it could elect to preserve those precious seconds. Quarterbacks are afforded more leeway to avoid intentional grounding.  In the past, a receiver needed to have a “reasonable opportunity” to catch a pass that fell incomplete to avoid penalty.  Now, a receiver must simply be “in the area” of a throw that lands untouched. Another new rule enables coaches to make more informed choices on whether or not to seek replay reviews of on-field calls.  Press box coaches booths can now be equipped with television monitors airing the live game broadcast.  Additional editing or recording devices are not allowed. Access to the same replays seen by viewers at home should make a big difference, particularly for road teams.  Whereas stadium video boards have long replayed controversial calls against home teams, visitors were previously at a disadvantage. For them, there was no further review before asking the officials for one.  But this season, they’ll enjoy equal-opportunity viewing.  At Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, where every game is televised, TV’s will be installed in both coaches booths. That doesn’t necessarily make the choice to challenge easy.  For starters, the head coach on the sideline has to first decide which assistants in the booth will advise him.  Will he, like some in the NFL, assign one person to be his eyes in the sky?  Or seek consensus from everyone in the booth? “We might have to find a guy, but I’m not sure right now,” Niumatalolo said.  “I don’t know if we’ll truly have the luxury of just having one guy look at it.  I know in the NFL, you can hire somebody to look at it.  It’s definitely something we’ll address as a staff.” Either way, there’s very little time for deliberation, especially if the Mids are on defense.  Almost always, when an offense benefits from a questionable call, it will hurry to run the next play before a review can be requested by either the replay official or opposing coach. “We have a fast procedure,” Niumatalolo says.  “We practice it all the time.” About to begin his 15th season as radio play-by-play voice of the Midshipmen, Bob writes regularly for navysports.com. He also calls Norfolk Tides baseball and is a freelance television broadcaster. To view and listen to samples of his work, please visit www.bobsocci.com.

Navy junior Bo Snelson takes over Ricky Dobbs’s old number and is poised for some fancy footwork on the field.

By Bob Socci

Originally posted on www.navysports.com on August 8, 2011.

Where else would one of the smallest guys on the field ask to fill the biggest jersey?

And who else could seem the perfect fit for the number called more than any other the last two years, despite barely scratching 5-foot-7 and totaling just 13 offensive touches in those same seasons?

Only at the Naval Academy. And only Bo Snelson.

In two seasons wearing Nos. 41 and 23 at slot back, Snelson had a dozen carries — one as a freshman and none as a sophomore, until the ninth game of 2010 — and one pass reception.

Meanwhile, Ricky Dobbs, as much as anyone in recent memory, made himself the face of Navy’s program by stretching the No. 4 over his shoulder pads and consistently delivering under the weight of great expectations.

In 2009, he set a record for Division I quarterbacks with 27 rushing touchdowns. In 2010, he passed for 13 scores to establish a new Academy standard. At season’s end, after concluding his career with 2,730 yards rushing and a school-record 49 TD, Dobbs hung up his uniform.

Initially, Dobbs’s old number was reassigned to sophomore cornerback Eric Graham for spring practice. But before nameplates could be sewn on this fall, Snelson sought to swap shirts.

“All through high school in the Houston, Texas area, I wore number 4,” Snelson explained last Friday. “And for various reasons, I’ve become pretty fond of it. Then I got here and it was Ricky’s number.”

Actually, Snelson has several thousand reasons for the switch. According to maxpreps.com, he gained more than 2,200 yards and scored 31 touchdowns as a junior tailback at Pasadena Memorial High School. The following fall, after moving to quarterback, he rushed for 1,900 yards and 24 scores.

Coached by his father, John, Snelson was twice named his district’s most valuable player, as well as the Old Spice `Red Zone’ Player of the Year.

If there’s any inherent pressure inheriting Dobbs’s `4′, it’s superseded by superstition.

“I asked Coached `Niumat’ if I get my old (numeral) back,” Snelson said in his Texas Twang, referring to a preseason conversation with head coach Ken Niumatalolo. “He asked if it would help me play a little better. I said, `Yes, sir, it will.’ So he let me have it.

“I feel a little more comfortable wearing number 4. There are a couple of things that I’m superstitious about. I feel like, as far as superstitions go, this is going to be a better move for me.”

It helped that Niumatalolo is more than a tad superstitious, even when judged by the extreme standards of the ritual-obsessed wide world of sports. It also didn’t hurt that whatever jersey he wears, heart alone should enable the undersized Snelson to overstuff it.

In a Dec. 2008 profile in the Houston Chronicle, Steven Thomson wrote that Snelson patterned his running style after NFL Hall of Famers Walter Payton and Earl Campbell. Keep in mind, Snelson is about four inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than Campbell in the prime of his playing days.

Or, perhaps better yet, Snelson’s waist is about as thick as either of the bruising Campbell’s thighs.

“When I was in eighth grade, my dad sat me down to talk about my goals,” Snelson told Thomson. “He said I would never be the tallest and probably not the fastest or the strongest. So I had to work the hardest and be the toughest. That’s the mentality that I’ve always had.”

“I told Bo (about) some of the obstacles that would be in his way,” John Snelson said at the time. “He set his mind to it. He’s a hard worker and a tough-minded kid.”

Up against Class 5A competition, as a genuine 48-minute man — high school quarters are 12 minutes — Snelson occupied both offensive and defensive backfields and appeared on special teams; yet he never missed a game or practice due to injury.

Highlights of him with the ball in his hands are a collage of long sprints down the sideline, high leaps over the line and disappearing acts, in and out of piles of defenders.

So far at Navy, as noted, such opportunities have been limited. Snelson did return four kickoffs as a plebe, but registered just a single carry his first 19 collegiate games overall. By November of last year, though, he cracked the Mids’ rotation at slot back and scored his first touchdown on a six-yard run at East Carolina.

True to his Pasadena Memorial Maverick roots, Snelson is somewhat of a non-conformist when it comes to football stereotypes. An English major who was a three-time high school class president, he proudly professes a love of ballroom dancing.

“That’s actually a hundred percent true,” Snelson confirms. “Being from Houston, where we have a large Hispanic population, I was involved in a lot of what are called la quinceañera celebrations (traditionally marking a Latina’s transition from childhood to womanhood).

“I was dancing the merengue, cumbia and waltz at a young age,” says Snelson, who also did the salsa at the Academy’s International Ball. “That’s something that I’ve always really enjoyed doing. It’s just presented itself at different opportunities, throughout my life. It’s always something that I’ve jumped at and tried to take advantage of.”

Now that Snelson has taken after Dobbs and looks to take on an expanded role on the field, his next logical steps on the floor would seem to be taking on the tango.

“I do know how to tango, but I’ve never actually had to perform that before,” he laughs. “But, hey, if the opportunity comes about, I might have to do that, yes sir.”

EXTRA POINT

Late last month, as he was about to embark on his 46th season as head coach of Penn State, Joe Paterno told reporters at Big Ten Media Day in Chicago that he’s “looking at four or five (more) years” overseeing the Nittany Lions.

Then, on Sunday, the 84-year-old Paterno was hospitalized following a collision with a wide receiver who was running a pass route in practice.

“I expect to be back at practice soon,” Paterno said in a statement, after undergoing tests on his right arm and hip. “I’m doing fine; tell everyone not to worry about me.”

Assuming health allows, Paterno should continue coaching as long as he likes. Born on Dec. 21, 1926, he could still be on the sidelines, coaching in a bowl game, after his 90th birthday.

Let’s hope he’s still knotting his tie, rolling up his shirt sleeves and pant cuffs and leading Penn State when Navy visits Happy Valley in 2012. If so, he’ll be revisiting a crossroads in his unparalleled coaching career.

Paterno opened his second season in charge of Penn State on Sept. 23, 1967 in Annapolis. The Nittany Lions entered with just five of their now record 401 all-time wins under Paterno; they also had five losses.

With less than a minute left, Rob Taylor made his Academy-record 10th catch of the day, hauling in a 16-yard touchdown pass to give the Midshipmen a 23-22 victory. Paterno’s record as a head coach was 5-6.

In his book The Lion in Autumn (published in 2005), author Frank Fitzpatrick wrote of Paterno’s fragile state of mind in the aftermath of that loss, on a long, quiet bus ride back to State College, Pa.:

“One of the few times when anyone can recall the coach being silent for an extended period also marked the moment when he might have come closest to abandoning his profession…all the plans and dreams he had formulated in sixteen seasons as Rip Engle’s assistant were evaporating in a haze of mediocrity. His best coaching attributes — competitiveness, a fierce drive, a need to excel — had turned inward and were devouring him.”

Paterno admitted to “having my doubts” after seeing Navy consume 489 yards of total offense at Penn State’s expense.

Any doubts — save for those related to age and its effects — were removed decades ago.

Get well and stay forever young, coach. See you next September.

About to begin his 15th season as radio play-by-play voice of the Midshipmen, Bob writes regularly for navysports.com. He also calls Norfolk Tides baseball and is a freelance television broadcaster. To view and listen to samples of his work, please visit www.bobsocci.com.

Alexander Teich and Jabaree Tuani lead the Midshipmen into the 2011 season.

By Bob Socci

Originally posted on www.navysports.com on July 29, 2011.

If your summertime reading includes college football annuals, you’re likely sensing a return to what Navy fans knew as the norm for most of the last eight years.

Virtually all of those seasons, amounting to a modern-day renaissance for the Midshipmen, began with relatively little national fanfare. Expectations rose only gradually, as Navy kept extending its ongoing streak of winning records and bowl games.

Generally, even the most optimistic projections only went so far. Written outlooks typically read like weather forecasts calling for partly sunny skies: Winning the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy is a definite possibility. There’s a good chance of returning to the postseason. If things break right, this just might be an eight-win team.

That seemed the consensus every August. Invariably, by late October, the Mids would turn up on the radar, on their way to at least eight wins. Seven Decembers in a row, they were crowned CIC champions. Perennially, people eventually noticed: The Little Team That Could had done it again.

All that changed last summer.

So-called insiders outside of Annapolis looked at Navy differently. Ten victories in 2009, following a narrow loss at Ohio State and capped by a Texas Bowl rout of Missouri, convinced some prognosticators to foresee the potential for an unbeaten finish to 2010. Those same pundits hailed quarterback Ricky Dobbs as a Heisman Trophy candidate.

They weren’t the only ones entertaining visions of Navy grandeur.

“We want to have a perfect season,” Dobbs admitted to Steward Mandel of SI.com.

“Top 25, undefeated, BCS bowl game — that’s all that is left. That’s what the next level is,” said fellow co-captain Wyatt Middleton in an Associated Press story.

Such talk about and, frankly, from Midshipmen was unfamiliar. As we soon learned, it was also unrealistic. And unfair. Unable to meet such outsized expectations, Navy still managed nine wins and reached another bowl. Imperfect as it was, that’s still a damn good year.

Turning the pages of periodicals to see what’s written in 2011, there’s concern on paper about significant roster turnover and what figures to be a very strenuous schedule. The Mids are ranked as high as the mid-50s (Lindy’s and Athlon) and as low as the mid-80s (Phil Steele’s).

To senior fullback Alexander Teich, they’re right where they want to be. For now.

“At times last year, we’d get caught up in what was going to happen down the road,” Teich said earlier in the offseason. “We got a little too full of ourselves early on. That’s not the Navy way. If we get attention, we’ll take it. But we’re not going to go out and seek it.”

As Dobbs’s successor in the role of offensive captain, Teich is focused on the finer details. And concentrating only on the immediate future.

“Win the game every day,” he says of this year’s overriding objective. “In the weight room, win the day. In practice, have a better day than the previous day.”

Throughout their eight-year run from 2003-10 — resulting in a 70-33 (.680) record — the Mids were at their best when carrying a chip on their shoulder pads. The playing field was their proving ground.

They must see it the same way in 2011. Head coach Ken Niumatalolo puts it this way: “We can’t forget who we are.”

It’s his constant reminder that although Navy’s program is populated by “tough, smart kids,” as Niumatalolo says, they “have to play harder than everyone else.” Or else.

No doubt, he’ll be repeating that point from Wednesday’s practice — the first of the preseason — right up to the afternoon of the Sept. 3 opener vs. Delaware. So will Teich and fellow co-captain Jabaree Tuani.

Perhaps, one more emotionally than the other.

“I wear my emotions on my sleeve,” admits Teich, who doesn’t plan to temper them as elected leader of the Mids’ offense. “I’ve been the same person all along. I’m still full of energy and a vocal person. I think people feed off that energy. People react that way, when I’m more fired up on the sideline.”

Whereas Teich’s unit is experienced, Tuani’s is exactly the opposite.

The offense returns eight starters and features a well-established heir apparent to Dobbs in senior Kriss Proctor. The defense lost eight starters and welcomes back only two of its top six tacklers from 2010.

“I’m definitely trying to be more of a vocal leader,” says Tuani, a starter in 35 of the last 36 games. “I’m trying to help people mature. We need guys to come out of their shell and reach their potential.”

And how.

There’s a month to resolve considerable personnel issues, particularly on the back end. Absent from the secondary are safety Middleton and cornerback Kevin Edwards, who graduated with a combined 80 starts. No longer at linebacker are Tyler Simmons, Aaron McCauley and Jerry Hauburger; three of last year’s top four in tackles.

What’s more, the first test for their successors is against a Delaware team coming off an appearance in the FCS Championship game. Featuring All-America running back Andrew Pierce, the Blue Hens seek their third win in Annapolis since 2003.

Two weeks later, the degree of difficulty increases exponentially at South Carolina, a favorite in the SEC East. Steve Spurrier’s Gamecocks only happen to have, arguably, the nation’s premier running back (Marcus Lattimore) and wide receiver (Alshon Jeffrey).

With no margin for error, there’s little time to grow up.

“We really need (everyone) to focus, and be on their keys,” Tuani says, echoing Teich’s call for an everyday sense of urgency. “Take our (offseason) `Fourth Quarter’ (conditioning) drills. Nobody really wants to be out there. But come game time, like Coach says, `You play like you practice.’

“I always try to think about this: everybody should (think) like a senior, because a senior always remembers his last game. You don’t want to let anyone down who came before you.”

Of course, if teammates can play remotely as well as their senior co-captains, it won’t be long before Navy gets noticed again.

Both are healthy, after battling injuries much of last season, and enter their final campaign considered among the best at their respective positions. Teich was `watch-listed’ for the Doak Walker Award; Tuani for the Rotary Lombardi Award.

A year ago, Teich rushed 147 times for 863 yards and five touchdowns. His signature performance and play helped the Mids beat Notre Dame, 35-17. Twenty-six carries against the Fighting Irish consumed 210 yards; a record for Navy fullbacks and most by a Mid in the 84-game series.

On Navy’s third play, Teich blasted through the middle for 54 yards. On its sixth, he wandered into the left flat, reached back with his right hand for a lob from Dobbs, batted the ball to himself and took off running. Thirty-one yards past the line of scrimmage, he launched himself — head over heels — into the end zone.

Similarly, Tuani showed near reckless regard for his already-banged-up body in the singular moment that sums up his first three seasons. Fighting off a block behind the play, late in a tight encounter with SMU, he lost his helmet. Unrelenting, he still tracked down the ballcarrier to make a crucial stop in a seven-point win.

Niumatalolo was so inspired on the spot, watching Tuani’s helmet-less tackle, he introduced a new team honor. He called it the `Warrior Award.’ Naturally, Tuani was its inaugural recipient.

“Luckily, the tackle wasn’t head on head,” Tuani joked, before reflecting. “I hope it showed that I would put anything on the line to help the team. There was no way I was going to pull up. It shows the devotion I have for the team.”

Should the 2011 Mids devote themselves to winning the day, from today thru December, they can prove once again, with Navy, what you see isn’t what you get.

“We’re not the biggest. We’re not the strongest,” says a representative Tuani, who defies the usual parameters of Division I, as a 6-foot-1, 265-pound lineman. “But playing us is going to be 60 minutes of hell.”

Bob has enjoyed a 15-year association with the Naval Academy. In addition to his current role as radio voice of Navy football, he calls Norfolk Tides baseball and is a freelance television broadcaster. To view and listen to samples of his work, please visit www.bobsocci.com.