Ah Yes, #24 Navy
This year's Navy football team was white, very white, most extraordinarily white, and not because the brass at USNA athleticswanted this. The team got real white because, four years ago, on Charlie Weatherbie's watch, a whole bunch of black players, mostly starters, got run off the team or out of the academy for foul behavior. A bunch were involved in a stolen car ring, and the fancy quarterback got in lots of trouble for deflowering underage lasses about the Annapolis area. Soon Charlie's 9-3 juggernaut from the late 1990s collapsed into the 0-12 and 1-11 disasters of the turn-of-the-century team. Charlie got dumped. My greatest remembrance was watching crying Navy players on TV, of both races, who had just gotten whupped by William and Mary during the no-wins year. Ol' Weatherbie got some bad press --- for allowing the criminal black players to get caught!
The new, no-nonsence Paul Johnson had a smart observation upon taking over the demoralized team. He observed that the Charlie system of recruiting consisted largely of "shotgunning" about 60 or 70 "athletes" in an early training camp in hopes of finding a "nugget" or two to augment a poor recruiting class. Johnson scrapped it immediately, saying that the school should recruit "football players" and not scour the academy's "athletes" for long-shot recruits.
So the current USNA teams is as white as it has been in decades -- including the 1978 team that did so well with George Welsh in charge. Rest assured, there is HUGE pressure on the USNA football program to toe the line and EBONIZE itself. Its current cofiguration, and future inclination to reward a traditional, white disciplined football player, rests largely with the new coach. I hope he can hold it together, and he will bespotlighted by local media, esp the WashingtonPost, for being an anti-black crusader unless he ebonizes with gusto.
Alas, the cornerbacks are all black .... but you can't have everything. What can I say -- but Beat Army!
Edited by: Realgeorge