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Steve Belichick was hired as a Navy assistant coach in 1956. As a scout on weekends, Belichick estimates he saw only a handful of actual games played by the Midshipmen.
Game day always meant he was on the road, preparing a written report for the next week. But Belichick was hooked that moment almost 50 years ago, when the Naval Academy's grim-faced, buzz-cut, finely trained human missiles hit the practice field -- and then hit opponents.
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| Paul Johnson has turned things around at Navy in just two-plus seasons. (Provided to SportsLine) |
Belichick fell in love with the kids, their mission and the academy, staying 33 years on the staff and eventually settling in Annapolis, Md.
Little Billy grew up there, played catch, broke down film with his dad and befriended Middies. This week is for Steve Belichick and every plebe, cadet and admiral that has felt the pride to the bottom of their toes only to miss out on the game-day glory.
This is Notre Dame week. There is no thin gray line to walk on this issue. Win and Navy breaks an NCAA-record 40-year losing streak to the Irish. Lose, and, well, it has been brought to the attention of coach Paul Johnson what it feels like.
"People have reminded me," he said.
Changing course
Navy football fell off the national radar soon after Roger Staubach won the 1963 Heisman Trophy. What was once a national power became a patriotic curiosity to be viewed each fall: Army-Navy.
In that place where we are all patriots, the service academies always matter.
But in football? Army and Air Force had their moments. Only Navy failed to hit much of a high note over the past four decades. Since Roger the Dodger carted off the hardware, there have been only eight winning seasons, five bowls, two bowl victories.
This week is for them because Navy football matters again. A bowl game last year; the first 5-0 start since 1979 so far; the Middies are getting votes in the polls.
Navy is tied for the ninth-longest winning streak in the country (five). It has a bona-fide NFL prospect in fullback Kyle Eckel. It is coming off a glorious victory at Air Force.
"I want to see Navy get to the point where it's playing for the national championship," former Navy great Napoleon McCallum said.
Whoa, whoa. That might be asking too much.
The Navy credo of honor, courage and commitment has never changed. Unfortunately neither has the worst losing streak in college football. Forty years of losing to Notre Dame is almost incomprehensible. But, you know, so is a little guy knocking the snot out of a big guy. In his 86th year of life and rehabbing from a stroke, Steve Belichick can still see that.
"I've been through the good, bad and indifferent," he said. "They're gung ho about the whole thing. Football here is different than anything else ... I had never seen so many small players knock the hell out of big players."
The builder
Join us at O'Brien's in downtown Annapolis. The coach is on hand for his weekly radio show. Somehow 50 senior midshipmen and civilians pack in waiting to scarf up what Paul Johnson is dishing out.
"If I could, I'd suit back up just to be at practice with that guy," Clint Bruce, a former Navy linebacker, told the Baltimore Sun. Bruce first experienced Johnson when the coach was offensive coordinator at Navy in 1995 and 1996.
Johnson is 47, part good-old boy, part acerbic tongue, part genius. He is one of only five I-A coaches not to play football beyond high school. In his down time Johnson likes to play the ponies and dabble in the stock market.
The academy loves him, though, because he's legit on the field. Navy was the second-most improved team in the country last year (2-10 to 8-5). The Middies won their first Commander in Chief trophy in 22 years. A second consecutive meeting with the president is assured if Navy can beat Army on Dec. 4.
The victory at Air Force was the program's first since 1996. In that game Johnson coolly summoned kicker Geoff Blumenfeld (0-for-4 at the time) to kick the game-winning field goal with 4 seconds left.
"I told him I knew he was going to make it," Johnson said. "We kick every day at the end of practice and he makes them."
Johnson knows he could be at a bigger I-A program or building a resumé as an NFL assistant. His spread option offense confounded I-AA to the point that his Georgia Southern team won two national championships.
In this offense Adrian Peterson would run wild. In fact, he already has.
The Georgia Southern running back of the same name ran for an NCAA-record 6,543 yards from 1998-2001. The spread option is running-back friendly, yes, but forces you to defend the whole field. Vanderbilt packed the box earlier this year. Quarterback Aaron Palanco changed the game plan and threw over the top for 176 yards. Navy won by three.
"It spreads out the field and gives you a chance to hit a lot of big plays," Johnson said. "You have four receivers. If you have four great receivers you can pass, if not you run the ball. It certainly bridges the talent gap."
Ah yes, the talent gap. Athletes at service academies have a higher calling.
Johnson's players have majors like Quantitative Economics and Infotech Macroeconomics. There is a military commitment at the end of school. The academy basically tells the coach whom he can recruit. From there, well, it's a challenge to see how many seamen can become I-A football players.
"Just because you're smart in math and science doesn't make it so in football," Johnson said sternly.
That's where the smack-em-in-the-mouth ethic kicks in. When Navy takes the field Saturday, its offensive line will be, on average, 23½ pounds lighter per man than Notre Dame's.
"We certainly don't recruit from the same pool," Johnson said. "There's a reason they've won 40 years in a row."
If Navy's success is going to be sustained, this time it's a fine line. Five-and-oh wasn't easy and, Johnson knows, might not last. His first season in 2002 was that 2-10 disaster that followed an 0-10 train wreck that created the opening in the first place.
"I knew it was a tough and hard job," Johnson said. "People that told me I couldn't do it, the more I wanted to do it."
So here we are at Notre Dame week once again. Lots of tough talk but still no results since the Kennedy administration. You'd think that the law of averages would apply at some point.
Steve Belichick still grumbles about bad spots, bad luck and horrible officiating over the years in the Notre Dame game. None of it ever went Navy's way. He was a young man when victory over the Irish last graced the Midshipmen in 1963.
"In our starting 11 we had seven guys who probably could have started at Notre Dame or anyplace else in the country," Belichick said. "(Then) we went through some tough times."
O'Brien's is packed again this week because they want to hear from Johnson about how and if the streak is going to end. Along with honor, courage and commitment there is anticipation, doubt and hope.
"It would be huge ...," Johnson said. "I don't know if anybody expects us to win."
The tough guy
Meet the running back who breaks all the stereotypes.
Kyle Eckel grew up in South Philadelphia, about four blocks from Veterans Stadium. Dude has a crooked nose, which you can bet was man-made by some antagonist's fist. One of his favorite movies is Rocky. Eckel being at Navy makes about as much sense as Pee Wee Herman doing Shakespeare.
"Nothing negative toward Kyle," Rick Knox, Eckel's high school coach, told the Virginian-Pilot. "(But) he's all South Philly. When he came to school here, well, his buddies from his old neighborhood would show up shirtless with E-C-K-E-L painted on their chests."
The family eventually moved out to the suburbs, where Eckel met a new friend whose three brothers played at Navy. No way, thought Eckel, until the friend told him that Navy played Notre Dame each year.
That sold the 5-foot-11, 240-pounder who, as an 18-year-old plebe, suddenly found himself taking crap from 150-pound upperclassmen. On the streets of Philly, he would have backhanded those kinds of guys to the pavement. At the academy, Eckel had to take it.
He found a way to lash out on the field. As a fullback in the spread option, Eckel is Navy's main ball carrier. A soldier, if you will, dealing out the pain every week. Eckel rushed for 1,249 yards last year, 152 of them while earning MVP honors in the Army-Navy game.
And tough? At halftime of the Duke game, Eckel took off special chest pads he had been wearing to protect bruised ribs. They got in the way and caused him to fumble twice in the first half. Unencumbered but less protected, Eckel scored two touchdowns in the second half.
Only the sixth player in Navy history to rush for more than 2,000 career yards, Eckel is rated as high as No. 2 among fullbacks on some NFL Draft boards. If it happens Eckel would be the first Navy graduate to be drafted in 12 years.
Future employers should be notified, though. If Staubach is the Navy ideal, Eckel is the ideal's bodyguard.
The sacrifices
For all of its glorious history, Notre Dame doesn't have to recruit against war. Navy (and the other service academies) are in the business of training warriors. Real warriors, not just game-day heroes.
Joe Bellino (1960) and Staubach (1963) combined to win Heismans twice in a four-season period. Staubach was the toast of the country in '63 as the Middies finished No. 2, beating Michigan, Notre Dame and Maryland.
Then it was off to Vietnam for four years before Staubach started his NFL Hall of Fame career with the Cowboys.
The grim reality has hit the academy hard the past two months: Two former players were lost. Lt. Cmdr. Scott Zellem, a linebacker from the Class of '91, died in a jet crash; a roadside bomb killed Lt. Ron Winchester, a lineman who graduated in 2001, on Sept. 3 in Iraq.
Winchester once played half a season with three broken ribs. The family has asked the team to play this season with his same dedication.
"Being on an athletic field, it is a relief in a way," said Staubach, who lost a teammate in Vietnam.
From 3:45 p.m. to about 6:15 p.m. each day practice is a salvation, a mental and physical oasis for Navy men. Notre Dame is just another obstacle. The only assurance at Navy is there have been and will be much bigger ones.
"We're not going to be in a BCS bowl this year but who knows? I shouldn't say that," Staubach said. "They might figure out a way to get us in there."