Quote:
Originally posted by KillarneyRose
Service Academy athletes are an entirely different breed...
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I wish I'd said it that way.
The first thing you notice is how bright they all are -- they have to be to get in. Unfortunately, that's not true in some places.
Second, they play for the love of the game because, with a very small number of notable exceptions, they have little or no chance to play professional (NFL Level) football after graduation -- there's this active duty thing they have to look forward to.
As the guy (I'm spacing his name right now) who wrote the book "Civil Wars" about the Army/Navy Game rivalry/tradition wrote, some of these players will trade gridiron wars for very real ones after graduation.
Of years of televising college football games, my most memorable was the year that two of the guys who worked for me and I did ten service academy games -- three at each academy and one at the Meadowlands. The atmosphere is just so great and the people you deal with are, for the most part, absolutely outstanding.