I’ve been out for the last few days, making the trip from Jacksonville to Vancouver, WA to deliver a car to my brother. I even managed to get a peek at the Smurf Turf in Boise since I happened to be passing through town during the state track meet. I’m back now, and I’ll be making acquaintences with the news that I missed while I was gone. Chet has a new contract? Good news!
The Air Force Times did an article on the Army’s Alternative Service (lol) Option over the weekend. It’s mostly the same ol’ stuff, with the twist of some quotes and background on Bryce Fisher, Air Force class of 1999 and current Tennessee Titans defensive end. It’s mostly stuff you’ve already seen, but there were a couple things worth mentioning.
We’ll start with the news that the Army is reviewing its policy, with findings due by the end of the month. At least, that’s the way it’s being spun:
An Army spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, said she couldn’t explain why the Army interprets the Defense Department’s policy differently from the Air Force and Navy. Army officials are reviewing this policy with a ruling due by the end of May, she said.
“We are currently conducting an internal review to ensure we are operating within the intent of DoD’s policy and will determine if any adjustments are appropriate,” Edgecomb wrote in an e-mail to Air Force Times.
But let’s be serious here. You don’t need to conduct an internal review “to ensure we are operating within the intent of DoD’s policy.” When the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness sends a memo to service secretaries three days after the NFL draft, reminding them what the DoD policy is and stating that “constructs for ‘active duty’ service should not include arrangements typically unavailable to others in uniform,” any literate person without an agenda already knows that the Army isn’t even coming close to complying with the intent of the DoD policy. So why the review? To figure out another way to circumvent the DoD directive, of course. It’s the only explanation. You don’t need any kind of review to simply say “Yes, sir!” and carry out your orders. So I’m not optimistic that the end of the Alternative Service (lol) Option is imminent, although after Chu’s memo it’d take some serious spinning and loophole-crafting to be able to weasel out of it. We’ll see if the Army can come up with anything.
Meanwhile, the Air Force has used the DoD policy to send a player to the Arena League:
First Lt. Brett Huyser, an Air Force Academy ‘04 grad who started two years on the football team and now plays guard for the Colorado Crush in the Arena Football League might have had a shot in the NFL if the Army’s policy applied to him back then.
“NFL teams called my agent, but once they found out that I would have to sit out for two years they lost interest,” he said.
Huyser transferred out of active duty two years ago and now splits his time in the Reserves working at the Air Force Academy and playing arena football for the Crush, from whom he earned $36,000 a year in his second season.
Wow… Arena football? Really? Good thing nobody’s abusing the DoD policy! I can only assume that Huyser just wasn’t cut out for the elite Combat Coach program. But spending reserve time at the Air Force Academy probably still gives him a chance to provide valuable mentorship, so clearly his education was money well spent by the American taxpayer.
Finally, we have this:
Last June, Air Force Academy baseball star Karl Bolt was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft after he graduated with his class in May.
Bolt is on active duty at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., but he saves his leave all year so he can break off and play in the Phillies’ minor league farm system over the summer. He is lining up at first base this summer for their Single-A minor league team, the Lakewood BlueClaws in New Jersey.
Man, I had a hard time squeezing in 5 days of leave on active duty. I’m not sure what Bolt’s job is, but I imagine it isn’t exactly a vital one if the command can get by without him for 30 straight days… Assuming that’s all he’s getting.
OK, now Navy’s lax season is over. Navy got off to a better start this time, but the end result of their second meeting with Johns Hopkins was pretty much the same. A quarterfinal-record crowd of 17,000 + saw the Blue Jays stomp the Mids, 10-4.
This game had all the usual ingredients of Navy lacrosse games from the second half of the season.
Opposing goalie made to look like an All-American thanks to gobs of easy saves? Check!
Sloppy passing and catching? Check!
On-screen graphic on television that describes the futility of the Navy offense? Check! (“Johns Hopkins: Second time this season holding Navy scoreless for 30+ minutes”)
The inability to do anything on offense was pretty disappointing, because a lot of other things went Navy’s way and might have given the Mids a chance to win if they could do more offensively than aiming for the goalie’s chest. As many turnovers as Navy had, Hopkins had problems maintaining posession themselves, at least early on. Mikelis Visgauss won 9 of 10 at the X in the first half, giving the Mids plenty of opportunities. And unlike the first meeting, Navy grabbed more ground balls than the Blue Jays. There was no shortage of hustle.
But teams can’t live on hustle alone, and in the end the story of the game was Navy’s lack of offense. Navy outshot Hopkins, just as they had done in the first meeting. Don’t let that fool you, though. Taking a million shots that sail high and get backed up by a teammate, just so you can take another harmless shot later in the posession, is not the hallmark of a productive offense.
But whatever. It’s the same story we’ve heard all year. And it was a disappointing year, given recent history. Navy lost to Army, didn’t win the Patriot League regular season, and got bounced out of the conference semifinals. The question now is whether this was just a rebuilding year, or the beginning of a trend. My gut tells me it’s the former, but I admit I’m still a bit nervous.
It’s a fact of life as a football independent that bowl games are hard to come by. Most bowl games have conference affiliations that make it hard for an independent like Navy to carve out a spot, even with the ever-growing roster of games. So when a conference and a bowl game split up, it’s big news for Navy fans. And that’s what we have today, as the ACC has decided to part ways with the Humanitarian Bowl.
“We will be leaving the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise,” ACC commissioner John Swofford told ESPN.com Wednesday. “They provided some excellent experiences for our teams. I think if you talk with our teams they’ve enjoyed being there. It’s a little different kind of bowl experience than a lot of places but our schools, coaches and athletic directors have wanted to move that particular game back more in our geographic footprint.”
Might the ACC’s departure create an opportunity for Navy to swoop in? It sounds like it:
“We’re working on two fronts — we want a one-year deal for 2009, and also are looking for someone to sign a longer-term deal with from 2010 and on,” McDonald said.
McDonald would not say who the bowl was speaking with for the future deals, though he did add that “we’re not just going to try and keep it geographical.”
That one-year 2009 deal sounds perfect, with the Congressional Bowl being locked up for 2008 and the Poinsettia Bowl’s at-large bid opening up again in 2010. And I think that the director’s comment about not necessarily limiting their selection to schools and conferences in close proximity to Boise is a clear signal to teams like Navy that they are in play. I have no doubt that Chet Gladchuk was on the phone the moment this news hit the wire.
I know what half of you are thinking. I can already hear the groaning. Boise? Yes, Boise. I know that the game is sort treated like the gag prize of the bowl season, but that’s just among the message board crowd. The Humanitarian Bowl Committee has a very good reputation around college football for treating their teams well. The main complaint about Boise is the cold, and yes, Boise is cold in December. But they put their cold to work for them. The Humanitarian Bowl is a sort of winter wonderland bowl game, with all the skiing and winter sports you can handle. It might not appeal to everybody, but spending New Year’s Eve skiing and watching football sounds like fun to me. It’s a unique bowl experience, and I’m all for it.
If you’re waiting for the Cotton Bowl to open up, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. I say we make the most of these opportunities when they present themselves.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense hasn’t been as silent about the Army’s flaunting of DoD policy as we thought.
Contrary to the “this is a DoD policy” spin that Army spokespeople like to claim, the Department of Defense does not approve of the “Alternative Service (lol) Option.” This was apparent to anyone (other than Army homers) who read the original policy. Now, even those people will have a hard time spinning this:
David Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, sent the memo to the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force on April 30 — three days after Campbell was drafted and Army’s program became national news. The subject of the two-paragraph memo is “Policy for Academy and ROTC Graduates Seeking to Participate in Professional Sports Before Completion of the Active Duty Service Obligations.”
The memo “retransmits” the Department of Defense policy issued in August and states it is “a policy that remains in force and may not be supplemented.” It goes on to say that “constructs for ‘active duty’ service should not include arrangements typically unavailable to others in uniform.”
Not to say I told you so, but….
So perhaps the sun is setting on West Point’s folly. Or maybe the Army will just ignore this memo too. I mean, it isn’t like they paid attention to the first one, which was already pretty damn straightforward in its intent. At this point, nothing surprises me. After all, this memo went out two weeks ago. There’s been plenty of talk from the Army about their wonderful policy since then.
It appears that earlier comments from DoD spokespeople about how it’s up to Army to interpret the DoD policy for themselves were really just a face-saving measure, trying to prevent any bad publicity for the Army while working behind the scenes to get them back in line. Now that the story of this second memo is out, the true shady nature of the Army policy is exposed– and it looks a lot different than the peaches and cream picture that they tried to put on it. Hopefully as this story spreads, the Army will be shamed into following the rules. Of course, the real shame is that we’ve even reached that point.
Meanwhile, there has apparently been a flap about the Army policy on Baltimore radio. The interesting thing about this bit isn’t that the author disagrees with the policy, but rather his take on some of the knee-jerk reactions from people who disagree with him:
“Mike”, a listener – now FORMER listener – took great exception with my opinion today. Mike has a military background and went to great lengths today to explain that both Bob and I are wrong on this matter. Never mind that it’s our respective OPINION(s) that the U.S. Army is wrong for allowing Caleb Campbell to play football rather than fulfill his duties in Iraq. Mike says we’re wrong for thinking that way and chastised me for having an opinion on something that I’ve never before experienced – “perhaps you should try crawling through the mud with a rifle (once) before you criticize the manner in which the U.S. Army operates”, he wrote to me in an e-mail.Well, if we used that theory as a barometer for sports talk radio, WNST wouldn’t exist, since none of us (I think) have ever thrown a pass in the NFL, stepped to the plate in major league baseball or hit a 3-point shot in Division I college basketball – yet we all see fit to comment, praise and criticize some of those situations every single day at 1570. Hell, no one in our listening audience has ever coached in the NFL and last January we had thousands of people claiming the ex-Ravens coach didn’t know what he was doing, right?
I know I touched on it earlier this week, but this guy is dead on. This idea that this is an issue only for military members to discuss is absurd.
With the Congressional Bowl and St. Petersburg Bowl both being given the green light by the NCAA, the inevitable whining about how there are too many bowl games is in full swing. The topic pops up twice a year; when new bowl games are approved (like now), and again during the bowl season itself. We have yet another piece here that presents all the usual arguments, this time courtesy of Paul Finebaum.
Usual argument #1: Nobody watches!
Does anyone care? Will anyone watch another meaningless bowl game featuring 6-6 teams that don’t want to be there and did nothing to earn an invitation?
Of course, ESPN is not only in the broadcasting business but now owns multiple bowls, including several of the newer ones. ESPN owning bowl games is a major conflict of interest.
I guess nobody else sees the irony in asking this question year after year as more bowl games are added. Do you know why they’re added? Because people watch! And why is ESPN owning bowl games a conflict of interest? That doesn’t make sense.
Most people have better things to do at noon on the Saturday before Christmas than watch Cincinnati and Southern Miss or Houston-TCU or New Mexico-Nevada. Even when the games are good, they are bad.
Well, that’s ESPN’s problem then. Why would anyone else care? Are people being forced to watch? And if some people can’t appreciate a good football game if it doesn’t involve the SEC, that’s too bad. Those of us who enjoy the game more than the hype don’t need neon lights to tell us what makes for a good matchup.
Usual argument #2: You’re rewarding mediocrity!
The argument is age-old that these bowl games give football players an opportunity to experience a new city (wow, five December nights seeing all the tourist attractions of Birmingham) and be fussed over. It’s an educational experience, part of the learning process, some claim.
No, it’s not.
It is a reward for mediocrity. It teaches young people that if you do a crummy job, you can still get by in the world. Nice example for young people, huh?
Really? You’re against bowl games because of the example it sets for “young people?” Really? As if players and fans don’t see a difference between the Motor City Bowl and the Rose Bowl. 6-6 teams don’t get the same reward as 11-1 teams. Bowl games are not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Everyone but grumpy sports columnists can see that.
Bowl games are fun. It’s college football. I like watching college football. If you do not like watching college football, then by all means do those “better” things you need to do on the Saturday before Christmas. Leave the football watching to the people who enjoy it.
It was little more than a week ago that the Navy lacrosse team appeared to be on the outside looking into the NCAA lacrosse tournament. Now the Mids are about to host a quarterfinal game, earning a rematch with Johns Hopkins after beating North Carolina, 8-7. It was a great win for a team that wasn’t even supposed to be there.
The Bad: During the pregame show on WNAV, Pete Medhurst mentioned that Coach Meade felt that his team needed to win at least 50% of the faceoffs in order to have a shot at winning. They didn’t even come close, only pulling out 6 of 19. Combined with UNC clipping Navy in ground balls (41-39), you’d think that it spelled bad news for the Mids. But that’s before you factor in…
The Good: …North Carolina’s atrocious 14-26 on clears. What used to be Navy’s biggest problem became their best friend on Saturday night, as the Tar Heels couldn’t solve Navy’s ride. Not only did UNC’s clearing problem lead directly to two Navy goals, but it also negated the posession advantage that usually comes from dominating faceoffs.
The Really, Really Good: Tommy Phelan was on fire with 12 saves, including several of the highlight-reel variety. Richie Meade felt that Phelan was the hot hand going into the game after this week’s practice, and his decision paid off.
The Better Than It Has Been Lately: For three quarters, Navy’s offense looked about as good schematically as it had all year. UNC’s defense was pushing out to challenge the Mids on the perimeter, which is the M.O. of a lot of teams the Mids have played lately. It led to some lousy passing and catching, but Navy also took advantage with much better shot opportunities than we’ve seen in the last several weeks. Tim Paul was the primary beneficiary with 4 goals, but the Mids generated a few shots from near point-blank range– something you’d expect to open up with a stretched-out defense. Unfortunately, Paul’s 4 goals were all that Navy’s set offense could generate.
The Ugly: That’s because Navy is probably the worst shooting team of any that is regularly in the top 10-15. Grant Zimmerman did make some nice saves, no doubt. But he didn’t always have to. Doesn’t it seem a little unusual that opposing goalies always seem to have career days against Navy? Think back to Bucknell, the second half of Maryland, Army, Hopkins, or even as far back as VMI and Mount St. Mary’s. Some good goalies, to be sure. But when great goalie play seems to be the norm, you start to wonder… Maybe it’s us. I’m not sure how to fix the problem, but it sure doesn’t seem like the Navy offense makes goalies work too hard. Johns Hopkins is good enough offensively that Navy will need to capitalize on those point-blank opportunities in order to keep up.
The incredibly frustrating: Navy went up 7-4 after 3 quarters, thanks to Paul’s 4 goals, a goal in transition by longpole Zack Schroeder, and a couple of gifts courtesy of Grant Zimmerman. Predictably, Navy put the brakes on the offense and stopped looking for shots.
SHOTS BY PERIOD 1 2 3 4 Tot
————————————-
Navy……………………. 11 12 15 3 – 41
North Carolina……….. 4 13 4 12 – 33
That includes 0 shots taken on a :30 EMO with about 10 minutes left in the quarter. And just as predictably, UNC fought their way back into the game, scoring three goals in the 4th. Fortunately for Navy, Nick Mirabito capitalized on an incredible gaffe in the UNC clearing game that left him with an empty net to shoot on. Otherwise, I might be writing a different story right now.
Let’s break this down a little bit. Navy had leads going into the 4th quarter against 5 teams that made the NCAA tournament field– Ohio State, Cornell, Colgate, Maryland, and UNC. In the 4th quarter of those games, Navy was outscored 13-4. The Colgate game was pretty much already out of reach. Against Ohio State and Cornell, Navy lost the lead. Against Maryland and UNC, both teams drew within a goal and had posession with a chance to score at the end of the game before making mistakes that ran the clock out. Navy lost a 6-2 lead against Ohio State, a 7-4 lead against Cornell, and put Maryland and UNC in position to tie the game after having 2nd half leads of 5-0 and 7-4, respectively. Whatever happened to putting an opponent away? The counter argument is that at that point, it’s more important to posess the ball than it is to shoot. But the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Turnover stats weren’t kept in the Ohio State game for some reason, but in the other 4 games, Navy averaged 3.83 turnovers per quarter through the first 3 quarters. In the 4th quarters of those games, Navy averaged 7 turnovers. Navy does a better job of maintaining posession when they’re actually trying to score. The same was true on Saturday, as long Navy posessions set the tone for the game in the first half. Defenses take more chances trying to get the ball back when they’re behind late in games, so it makes sense that they’d force more turnovers in the 4th quarter. But the flip side of taking chances is supposed to be that the opposing offense will make you pay, since playing too aggressively will create holes in the defense. After scoring only 4 4th-quarter goals in those 5 games, Navy doesn’t do that. They allow the defense to dictate instead of pressuring them right back. Consequently, no lead is seemingly ever safe against a team that’s any good.
Of course, I pray that Navy is in position to blow a lead against Johns Hopkins this weekend, since that would be a huge improvement over the Mids’ last performance against the Jays. When you think about it, things are shaping up about as well as Navy fans could have hoped for. We had a first-round game against a UNC team that Navy had historically played well against, had a hit-or-miss offense, and was badly overseeded at #4. And now we have another crack at Johns Hopkins, which is always a welcome opportunity. The seniors have an opportunity to wash the bad taste of the last Hopkins game out of their mouths, having been given a second chance that you just know they’re fired up about. And they get it at home in front of what will probably be a crowd of 20,000+. After the miserable way the regular season ended, could things have worked out any better? I don’t think so.
People know him. He’s very important. He has many leather-bound books, and his apartment smells of rich mahogany.
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2008/05_07-13/NAS
Taxpayers foot the bill to educate students at Air Force, Army and Navy under the belief the graduates of those institutions will one day protect the rights and freedoms of United States citizens by serving in the armed forces. I would imagine the majority of taxpayers would agree that playing pro football full-time while recruiting part-time does not constitute legitimate military service.
Which begs the question: How effective of an Army recruiter can Caleb Campbell be considering he’s effectively avoiding his five-year commitment? It would seem difficult for Campbell to talk about the realities of military service when he has not fully tasted that life.
Wags smacked this one to smithereens. It’s the most comprehensive breakdown of the situation that we’ve seen in the media. If you were worried about what you were going to tell your senator, don’t be; Wags did the heavy lifting for you. Because that’s what he does. Well, in between rescuing cats from tall trees, delivering babies at Anne Arundel Medical Center, bringing rain to the desert, and getting great gas mileage.
After Adam Ballard commented on the importance of making good on one’s commitments, Army punter Owen Tolson made the mistake of offering a feeble response to the noble oratory of America’s Alpha Male:
“Adam is a great player and he had a great career,” said Tolson, who will report to mini-camp with the Giants next week. “I’ll give him that. But I think what a lot of people who comment don’t realize is that this (alternative service) policy will give all the academies good exposure.”
Tolson could of easily lashed out at Ballard. He didn’t. However, Tolson did manage to get another point across.
“My father (Tommy) is a commander in the Navy and he thinks it’s a good idea and so does a lot of the people he works with. “Adam is a great athlete, but I think he needs to get some more information so he better understands the policy.”
I must be the dumbest and/or laziest person on the internet. The Army’s response to every single challenge of this policy (whether through the players or through some spokesmouth) is that if you don’t like the policy, you just don’t understand. You might even be a “fool.” You just need to get more information. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be providing any of it.
How arrogant can they be?
Columns about Big East expansion are no rarity. Almost as common are mentions of Navy within those columns as a candidate. But saying that Navy is too good for the Big East?
The Navy possibility has always been intriguing. Annapolis, Md.? Sure. The football is pretty good. There is also the nationwide draw of the Army-Navy game, though its contract with CBS would be an issue.
But the biggest problem with Navy is that it might be a little too good. The Midshipmen, who averaged eight wins a year the past five seasons under former coach Paul Johnson (now at Georgia Tech), could easily hang in the Big East and be in the mix for one of the conference’s seven bowl bids.
Adding another team to a conference sounds good until it affects you directly. And Navy coming in would affect middle-of-the-pack teams even with the conference aligning itself with the new St. Petersburg Bowl pitting Big East and C-USA schools. With similar records, Navy could be more attractive than other Big East teams to bowl committees.
Now I’ve seen everything.
The Birddog 