<p>Navy07 you are dead on with your post. Memphis9489 is missing the point. Sure every cadet and every alumnus out there gets the chills when “their team” wins. But impacting recruiting for anything other than the varsity program?? No way. Follow that logic- if the quality of football team has any impact on the recruiting for the Academy or the service in general, then by logical extension the quality of cadets/midshipmenand soldiers should be negatively impacted by lousy teams. So- how bad did the quallity of Navy officers drop with your teams of the 80s thru the arrival of Paul Johnson in the later 90s? How about Army now- is the quality of recruiting for either the Army or the academy in the hopper because of the football teams troubles? Hardly.
Follow this example to its logical conclusion and either expect to lose the best and the brightest at their discretion - or have your entire reason for being called into question. I can see the mission statement now: “we spend $300k+ per student to train officers unless at the end they get a better offer -even in a war time?” That ought to secure a bright future for all of the service academies. Sports are important at the academies because they are complimentary to the mission of developing professional officers - if they become a mission unto themselves they have no business being at the SA. If there are varsity athletes at the SA with aspirations of a professional career they belong somewhere else, or they need to understand and accept that their career in sports will be delayed 5 years.</p>