Ensign not giving up NFL dream</font>
Navy, not pro football, awaits most Midshipmen
By Michael Rothstein
The Journal Gazette
Friday, Oct. 27, 2006
On Monday mornings, co-workers approach his desk in Norfolk, Va. It'd be idle chatter in most offices, cooler chatter among guys about college and NFL games from the weekend.
But Kyle Eckel's desk garners more attention. When the conversation comes up, it becomes a reminder of his dual reality.
Two years ago, Eckel stood out at Navy, a bruising fullback who helped in the resurgence of the Midshipmen and had reasonable buzz about playing in the National Football League.
His everyday reality is this: sitting behind his desk doing work and wondering, waiting, for his shot.
"It's always in the back of my mind," Eckel said. "Staying in shape and working out and hopefully being prepared that when the time is called, I'll be ready."
Premier recruits forgo military academies because of postgraduation military requirements that leave little option to go pro.
Players go to serve their country, not their NFL possibilities.
Coaches at Army, Navy and Air Force have smaller pools of players to work from. With stringent academic guidelines, the academies must find players with exceptional grades and a desire to serve and protect something much more important than a quarterback.
"When you are aspiring to be a pro football player from a young age, you're not going to go to a school with a military obligation," New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi said.
Eckel, 24, is an ensign in his second year of the postgraduation military commitment. If he had gone to another school, he could be pulling an NFL paycheck, living the life many football players imagine.
Instead, he sits on the Miami Dolphins roster on the military leave list, a distinction that could disappear in May when he finishes two years of his five-year commitment and can apply to the secretary of the Navy for an appeal that would push the rest of his commitment to the Navy Reserve.
He used leave time to attend training camp with the New England Patriots in 2005 but knew it wouldn't last. When camp ended, he went from NFL player to Naval officer.
"It was bittersweet," Eckel said. "It was your dream and it was put on hold, but I understood going in the Naval Academy that it was the way things would have to happen."
When a prospect heads to a service academy, education and the military are the focus - not the NFL or the NBA or the PGA Tour.
"Most of the kids, when they come here, are interested in being commissioned officers," Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said. "Most athletes at a civilian school, from Notre Dame to FSU to Syracuse, everyone, if they admit it or not, has aspirations to be an NFL player.
"The Naval Academy and Army and Air Force, our mentality is to commission officers to serve our country."
At one time, Army and Navy were attractive options to many of the nation's top players. World War II was going on and the NFL was still in its infancy. Players such as Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis and Joe Bellino saw the opportunity for a better degree and more lucrative options in the military and business worlds than professional football.
But as the league became more popular, salaries skyrocketed and playing football without military duty became the more attractive option.
"That just kind of changed in the late '60s and '70s," Navy coach Paul Johnson said. "You talk to the guys who played in the NFL in the '60s, they didn't make any money, most of them. It wasn't as big a deal."
But as the NFL grew, the pool of prospective service academy players shrunk. Top academic and athletic prospects would choose Notre Dame, which plays all three service academies over the next month, or Stanford or Texas because of the ability to reach the NFL faster.
Notre Dame senior safety Tom Zbikowski considered Navy. His family - like many of the players at the service academies - had a military background. But the postgraduation commitment concerned the Irish defensive captain and he ended up in South Bend instead of Annapolis, Md.
"I don't want to say it's one of the downfalls, but it is one of the things I took into consideration," Zbikowski said. "I was looking more at the positives of what it would do and set me up for the future but you do take into consideration the numbers."
Currently, there are more rookies from Notre Dame on New England's roster (three) than service academy players on all the NFL rosters combined (two). Bryce Fisher, a defensive end from Air Force, starts for Seattle, and Mike Wahle, a guard from Navy, plays for Carolina.
"What we get in the service academies are kids who are pretty much committed to a future of serving in the service, so it isn't as high of a priority to them," said Army coach Bobby Ross, who coached at Georgia Tech and in the NFL. "The fact of the situation of the high-profile guys and blue chippers don't want to consider the military in any shape or form."
This isn't a fault. It just means the service academies recruit prospects with military backgrounds or kids who want to play Division I football and offers were limited.
Lightly recruited out of high school, Eckel went to Navy to play college football, not to go to the NFL. He is the rare exception of the player who developed enough to become a pro prospect. But most academy players have no aspirations of it. If they do, they go somewhere else.
"There are going to be players," Accorsi said. "They are going to have prospects. They have good coaches.
"A lot of good athletes, with great coaches, they develop players and make them better."
Johnson helped mold Eckel into an officer and a football man. He works out, using his regimen from the academy, to keep himself in shape.
Every week, an e-mail comes from an old classmate or friend, asking about his football future. There is total support because the Navy wants to see another one of its guys make it there, too.
"Being with the Patriots for a little while and seeing the caliber of players, it's a shame that a few other guys didn't get noticed at all because there are a few other guys who have at least given it a shot," Eckel said. "All the circumstances with the commitment hurt us in that aspect, but we have no regrets.
"We talk about going to other schools, but we're like, 'No way. We did it right.' "
It's the attitude of a military man, whether he makes it or not.
