Sports Comment: Service academies should march on equal recruiting footing

By Bill Wagner

Published 05/07/08

Much has been written and said the past week about Army's controversial version of the Alternative Service Option.

While the policy has been in place since April 2005, it did not become national news until Army safety Caleb Campbell was selected in the seventh round of the National Football League draft by the Detroit Lions. Three more Army football players - punter Owen Tolson, fullback Mike Viti and wide receiver Jeremy Trimble - signed free agent contracts with NFL teams in subsequent days.

Because of a program instituted when Francis J. Harvey served as Secretary of the Army, all four future West Point graduates will be...

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Alternate Service Policy - May 13, 2008

It is simply a question of loyalty and commitment. Whereas USNA daily demonstrates, "Ship, Shipmate, Self"; USMA appears to support, "To thine ownself be true."

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Patricia Fox - Sunnyvale, CA - Karma: Bad

the rest - May 10, 2008

Here's the rest of my comments: Ok, I thought I was about done, but I keep thinking up new points. How about the graduates that go on to get their post grad degrees for a year or two. We certainly wouldn't bad mouth our VGEPS and Rhodes Scholars saying they are shirking their military duty, but certainly you can see how the argument can be made. While we get a better product from them after the extra education, we get a better product from the athlete through the exposure and the number of student athletes that then join the military. Don't forget the number of servicemen in all branches in various versions of World Class Athlete Programs. While they're tied more tightly to a military life, they still aren't serving on the front lines, which seems to be the major argument against Cadet Campbell going to the NFL.

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Walter F. - Doral, FL - Karma: Bad

Pro opportunities - May 10, 2008

While many of your points are valid, you ignore the other side of the coin. Recent Navy grads who have had success in the NFL include Max Lane, Mike Wahle and Kyle Eckel. They all basically got themselves kicked out of the Navy in order to pursue NFL options. The amount of greatpublicity and goodwill the Navy has lost out on for these high profilefigures is astronomical. It was only three years ago that the Navy was still downsizing and letting officers out of various commitments. They should be leveraging this good will for future recruiting, not just of athletes but what a true scholar athlete represents. The Army is smart on their move, even with a little bit of backlash, the people they are trying to recruit will be impressed and realize the Army cares about the individual and they are not just another number. How much more great press did Navy lose by holding David Robinson and Napoleon McCallum out of the limelight for two full years? On the Marine Corps side, we have lost a valuable pportunity to maximize the exposure of WEC light heavyweight champion (and former Navy football player) Brian Stann. He's the perfect combination of someone who has excelled in both athletics and on the battle field. The Marine Corps talks about it's MCMAP program and our warrior mentality, we have a guy living that to the fullest and we have not leveraged that to our benefit. Our lack of ability to utilize the media in our favor is the same reason we are having trouble in Iraq. If you could take a mere 1% of Service Academy graduates and let them pursue these opportunities for the greater good, it's much better than the probably 2 or 3 % that may quit the academy after youngster year to pursue other options, let alone the .0001% that give the service academies a bad name when they are faced to make that choice between two dreams. There was more but you won't let me post it all.

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Walter F. - Doral, FL - Karma: Bad