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Rules dim NFL scouts’ interest in cadets

Top high school football recruits don’t go to the Air Force or other service academies to get to the National Football League, said Tennessee Titan defensive end and Air Force Reserve Capt. Bryce Fisher.

That’s because the five-year service commitment, including a minimum two years on active duty, that comes with an academy commission keeps them off the field right after graduation. Even so, NFL scouts sometimes show up at the academy practice fields if they think they might have found the next Chad Henning — the Air Force Academy All-America defensive end who flew A-10s and then won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s.

Now, however, NFL scouts are more likely to head for West Point than the Air Force Academy. Three years ago, the Army approved an “alternative service option” under which an active-duty officer can break his service commitment and switch to the Army Reserve if his special talents could help recruit more soldiers. Army senior safety Caleb Campbell was the first West Point grad drafted under this new policy when the Detroit Lions selected him in last month’s NFL draft.

If Campbell makes the Lions’ final roster, he can skip his active-duty commitment and serve as a reservist at a recruiting station in Michigan while he plays professional football. Air Force NFL hopefuls, wide receiver Chad Hall and linebacker Drew Fowler, received invites to try out for the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions, respectively, but neither one has the option Campbell does — no matter how well they play.

They must serve a minimum two years on active duty before they can apply to transfer into the Air Force Reserve and make an NFL roster. “The DoD policy is clear and the Air Force is in line with it,” Air Force spokesman Capt. Tom Wenz said.

That Defense Department policy was written last August and is almost identical to the Army’s alternative service option — except for the two-year stipulation.

First Lt. Brett Huyser, an Air Force Academy ‘04 grad who started two years on the football team and now plays guard for the Colorado Crush in the Arena Football League might have had a shot in the NFL if the Army’s policy applied to him back then.

“NFL teams called my agent, but once they found out that I would have to sit out for two years they lost interest,” he said.

Huyser transferred out of active duty two years ago and now splits his time in the Reserves working at the Air Force Academy and playing arena football for the Crush, from whom he earned $36,000 a year in his second season.

He would have been a long shot to make an NFL roster, but if he had, he would be entering his fourth season where the NFL’s league minimum for a fourth year player is $510,000.

An Army spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, said she couldn’t explain why the Army interprets the Defense Department’s policy differently from the Air Force and Navy. Army officials are reviewing this policy with a ruling due by the end of May, she said.

“We are currently conducting an internal review to ensure we are operating within the intent of DoD’s policy and will determine if any adjustments are appropriate,” Edgecomb wrote in an e-mail to Air Force Times.

Recruiting edge?

Players aren’t the only ones who might benefit from the different active duty policies.

Army’s football team could use this as a recruiting edge over their service brethren, said Barry Every, a national recruiting analyst for Rivals.com, a web site dedicated to covering college sports recruiting.

Professional sports exposure does reap major media attention. Before Campbell was even drafted, ESPN did a lengthy profile on him for its new show “E:60” about whether a potential NFL career should keep him from serving in Iraq with his fellow West Point graduates.

The military invests millions into advertising on NASCAR race cars, causing Every to wonder why all three academies don’t provide the same opportunity to their graduates due to the positive exposure it garners the military in more popular sports like football and baseball.

Last June, Air Force Academy baseball star Karl Bolt was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft after he graduated with his class in May.

Bolt is on active duty at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., but he saves his leave all year so he can break off and play in the Phillies’ minor league farm system over the summer. He is lining up at first base this summer for their Single-A minor league team, the Lakewood BlueClaws in New Jersey.

Titan’s journey

Like Campbell, Fisher was drafted in the late rounds of the 1999 NFL Draft — he was the 248th pick by the Buffalo Bills.

Of course, Fisher had to sit out two years. He eventually played on football’s biggest stage for the Seattle Seahawks in the 2006 Super Bowl. But until his senior year at the academy, he never thought the NFL was a possibility and instead hoped to receive a pilot slot and fly helicopters.

But NFL scouts started showing up at practice his senior year and his coaches told him their interest in him was real. Fisher had to make a tough decision because he couldn’t do both. A pilot slot brings a 10-year active-duty service commitment, but neither career path brought any guarantees.

“It wasn’t so much that it was hard choosing to be a pilot or to go pro, as there were no guarantees of either,” he said. “Completing pilot training is really tough, and being able to make a team, what are the chances? It’s not like the academy is a football factory.”

Fisher chose to go pro after talking it over with his family and found himself at the Bills training camp fighting to impress the coaches enough to keep him in mind even though he couldn’t play for two years.

His first year after graduation, Fisher served as a graduate assistant on the academy’s football team, allowing him to keep his skills up.

His second year on active duty was tougher. He was stationed at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., serving as a transportation officer, and for the first time completely away from football after he attended the Bills training camp that summer. He kept in shape doing yoga during his lunch break and working out after work in Pope’s gym for two hours with an amateur body builder.

“The biggest challenge was to show well enough in training camp that they wanted to have you back and staying focused on a goal that was two years out,” Fisher said.

Plus, it wasn’t a sure thing he would be released from active duty even after serving two years.

The decision to transfer him to the Reserve went all the way up to the Air Force chief of staff, Fisher said, with the stipulation that if he didn’t make the Bills’ team he would return to active duty.

He made the team and now is training for his eighth season in the NFL with his fourth team.

He’s also a public affairs officer with the Washington State Air National Guard.

The Air Force Academy was contacted for this story, but neither Hall nor Fowler chose to be interviewed. Fisher hasn’t spoken with them either, but he did have advice for his fellow Falcon grads: “Play hard and let the chips fall as they may,” he said.

“If you are good enough, the NFL will find a place for you.”

DISCUSS: Should an athlete be "excused" from active duty?