Yeatman and the Navy

While much of the chatter with Will Yeatman this week centered around his family's harrowing adventure in San Diego that almost cost them their house, the sophomore tight end also has a deeper connection with Navy. San Diego, where Yeatman grew up, is a big Navy area. Plus, his grandfather went to the Naval Academy.
"My grandpa went there, my dad went there, I grew up wanting to go there until I was about 14 years old," Yeatman said. "I lived there when I was younger. My whole family is from Annapolis."

So they are all rooting for Navy this week?
Will Yeatman: I don't want my dad's Navy friends to hear this but he's on my side. He said the four years that you play Navy as a Notre Dame player, I'll root for Notre Dame. But they are all pulling for me pretty hard.

What changed for you at age 14?
WY: Believe it or not, I went to a Navy lacrosse camp. I had always gone back to Annapolis for a month out of the summer and that's where I got a lot of experience playing tough competition in lacrosse, going to a lot of lacrosse camps, and I went to the Navy camp. I remember my brother was my roommate and we were woken up at exactly 4 in the morning with plebes doing their plebe conditioning and plebe drills, running around, doing their marches. I remember just saying 'I don't know if this place is for me.' After I still had a love for the place and when they started recruiting me I took an unofficial visit there for a day and met with their football and lacrosse coaching staffs but that was cemented in my mind that maybe that's not for me.

Did you tell (lacrosse coach) Richie (Meade) and (football coach) Paul (Johnson) that day thanks but no thanks?
WY: I still thought about it. Last year when we played Navy, it was a game where I'm on Notre Dame and obviously want to win but I said, you know, if there was one other school I have a ton of respect for, a ton of love for, this is the school because I've grown up my whole life being a Navy fan.

-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette

Comments

[Bobby]

Mike, not sure if you watch any of the fine programming over at FOX, but Regis Philbin, yes, that Regis Philbin, was ousted in the hit show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"

Regis admitted that he was, in fact, not as smart as a fifth grader.

But you know what smarts? That "wait-list" letter from Regis' alma mater sitting on my dresser, dated Nov. 26, 2000, which was my 18th birthday.

Go Billikens.

Bobby Metzinger
Saint Louis University '05