12/9/2003 - Football
Homeward Bound

By Bob Socci

Early next October their team buses will pull up alongside the entrance to Falcon Stadium, at the top of a hill overlooking the vast expanse of the Air Force Academy.

The Navy Midshipmen will then descend the long ramp that slopes under the grandstand, leading all the way to the open air of the north end zone.

Shortly before reaching the bottom, they will come to the double doors facing one another.

On the left the entrance to the home locker room. Across the way the visitor's side.

For those who've walked this walk before, something will most definitely be different.

In recent years past - more likely by design than coincidence - Air Force's set of doors were usually propped open.

Not necessarily an invitation to enter. But for any passerby, at least an opportunity to peek inside for a glimpse at the crown jewel of service academy football, the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy.

Sitting there in Colorado Springs, greeting the Falcons and teasing their opponents. Both a reminder of what the home team was playing to retain and what its opponent could only hope to reclaim.

For the better part of the last two decades, anyone from Navy - or Army, for that matter - might view that trophy the way a poor maiden peers through the windows of Tiffany's. Only to wish and imagine.

But next fall, when the Mids revisit the Rockies, there will be no need to look. For there will be only an empty space in the Air Force showcase.

By then, the 70-pound object of academy desire will be resting elsewhere. And at 2 1/2 feet tall, no longer casting the shadow that's covered the Navy program for the last 22 years.

On the Monday after the Midshipmen beat Army, 34-6 - and nine weeks after they defeated Air Force - the C.I.C. Trophy was unceremoniously loaded onto a U-Haul bound for Annapolis.

Hardly a glorious way to transport arguably the most truly meaningful symbol in sport. And yet, perhaps the most appropriate.

Over land, on a truck. Which should have bore a big, bold "32" in Navy blue and gold.

In a sense, that's exactly how the Midshipmen won back the trophy.

Getting more mileage out of their ground game than any other team in the nation, mostly through dogged repetition in a system unique to Division I-A football.

And on the broad shoulders of a blue-collar ethic, epitomized by an indefatigable fullback whose Philadelphia story America has come to know.

Kyle Eckel wasn't yet born into the South Philly neighborhood of his youth the last time Navy clinched the C.I.C. title at Veteran's Stadium on December 5, 1981.

No, he didn't arrive on this earth until 25 days later.

In the years since, Eckel has gone from a distant observer of a game played nearby to a central figure in a rivalry watched by those who serve around the world.

"I was pretty confused when I was younger," Eckel recalled, after being selected Most Valuable Player on a brutally cold day at Lincoln Financial Field, the new home of his beloved Eagles. "I'd see paratroopers and SEALS in the air (entering The Vet). I didn't know if it was sailors playing or what."

Eventually, as he and his family moved away from the city, Eckel grew closer to the game.

He attended Episcopal Academy, where Kyle became tight with one of the first families of Navy football, the Persons. He followed three of the brothers Person - Andy, Chris and Dan - from Episcopal to Annapolis, becoming part of a pipeline that also included linebacker Ryan Hamilton.

With him, Eckel brought a style shaped by the city whose often bitter edge disguises a soul nourished by scrapple and cheesesteaks. A city whose favorite sons include real-life slugger, Smokin' Joe Frazier, and the fictional pug, Rocky Balboa.

It's the latter who apparently captivated Eckel's attention at an early age and still does to this day.

Though anything but a slow-footed plodder with a ball in his hands, Eckel runs the way the Sylvester Stallone character would fight. Never afraid to mix it up and slug it out.

In his first Army-Navy appearance, the Mids' Rocky Balboa bounced off Apollo Creed, ran around Clubber Lang and bowled over Ivan Drago on the way to 152 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

This time he wound up not atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but at the summit of academy football. Like his teammates, a C.I.C. champion.

"Kyle has tremendous strength and great balance. He's just so big and hard to tackle," head coach Paul Johnson said. "Especially in these academy games. When we play against ourselves in the spring and the fall, our guys have a hard time tackling him, and so did the guys from Air Force and Army."

Opposite the Falcons, Eckel gained a career-high 176 yards, including the game-clinching touchdown.

Against Army, he wore a patch on his right shoulder from the USS Independence, featuring the Liberty Bell encircled by 13 stars.

And by the time Eckel barreled into the end zone for the second time, he helped reserve the Mids' right to ring the Gokokuji Bell, which stands before Bancroft Hall and sounds when Navy defeats its arch rival.

"Kyle played a great game, and made a couple of really spectacular runs in the second half," said Johnson. "I guess the last touchdown run was really something else."

Perhaps the signature highlight of Eckel's career to date, it displayed the determination typical of someone who was left off the varsity as a plebe, faced season-ending knee surgery as a sophomore and has withstood recurrent shoulder pain as a junior.

"He's just a real tough kid," says quarterback Craig Candeto, someone who ought to know about toughness. "He's been playing with a banged up shoulder all season and hasn't let it slow him down."

Not that Navy's was a single-handed effort.

Like the patch on Eckel's shoulder, there were numerous stars attached to the Mids' victory - their fifth over the Black Knights in the last seven years.

While several scored, others blocked and tackled.

Many remained anonymous on the sideline, having spent the previous two weeks in practice wearing a black stripe on their gold helmets as members of the scout team. It was their triumph too.

What they, like Eckel, represent is what has enabled Navy to enjoy - in Johnson's words - "a storybook season."

All substance, little style.

Their coaches keep the game simple, yet put them in position to succeed. They work hard, content to do what they do, intent on doing it best.

Brazen enough to think they could play in a bowl game, regardless of the futility of recent seasons, they followed each setback with two steps forward.

Just like the fullback bruising past tacklers and refusing to cave in when defenders pile on.

"You gotta lose to learn how to win, that's what they say," Eckel said. "We've been losing for a pretty long time, so we learned a lot. This year, we came in, and we used everything we learned."

Next year, Eckel et al will learn something else.

They'll discover how it feels to stroll into a rival's stadium when the trophy they once could only covet is theirs, some 1,500 miles away. And they'll realize what it takes to defend a title.

It won't be easy. But when that time comes, the Mids may simply draw from what they already know.

Climb aboard, buckle up and let the kid from Philly carry them home.

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