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Midshipmen basketball players have a higher calling

On the bench, Navy senior K.C. Gordon talks with Lt. Adrienne Roseti, Officer Rep of the team during the UD women’s game vs. Navy on Tuesday, Jan. 5, at UD Arena.

Staff photo by Jim Witmer On the bench, Navy senior K.C. Gordon talks with Lt. Adrienne Roseti, Officer Rep of the team during the UD women’s game vs. Navy on Tuesday, Jan. 5, at UD Arena.

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 1:49 AM Thursday, January 7, 2010

After three years on the Wright State staff, Jenerrie Harris is now an assistant coach for the U.S. Naval Academy’s women’s basketball team.

She was on the bench Tuesday night, Jan. 5, when the visiting Midshipmen lost to the Dayton Flyers and, a day later, she and the team were still in town, practicing at UD Arena before a late flight back to Annapolis, Md.

“I don’t think a lot of people — opposing teams, fans in the stands, even some of the girls we recruit — fully understand the demands our players face, the commitment they make, even their mind-set,” she said. “It’s a lot different than the typical D-I athlete.”

You got an idea of some of those differences even before the opening tip Tuesday. For the national anthem, the UD players lined up across the court, interlocked arms and then, with just a few bars left in the song, broke ranks and headed across the court to offer well-wishes to their rivals.

The Navy players — rigid, arms down at their sides, at attention — didn’t move a muscle until the anthem’s last note was done.

“I know it’s a small thing, but I see it most every game we play,” said Navy senior forward and team captain K.C. Gordon. “When we look across the court, I always see the other players moving around. And before the song’s over, they’re running off or coming to us, but we’re not allowed to move. No offense, but that moment means something different to us.”

You can see the difference between the Navy players and most other teams if you look in their media guide, too.

Gordon’s two-page bio includes a big picture of her in fatigues, muscling herself up a 30-meter rope on an obstacle course.

A few pages later, senior guard Beth Reed was pictured in a flight suit standing next to a jet, a shot from the two weeks spent this past summer flying with the Hornet Squadron in Virginia Beach, Va.

As for her helmeted, goggled photo, junior guard Angela Myers shrugged: “That picture was from Camp Pendleton. I’d been shooting guns.”

Most of all, though, you realized the difference when you listened to the players and other team personnel talk about past Navy athletes.

The program’s all-time leading scorer — Courtney Davidson — is now a Marine aviator, flying C-130s and about to be deployed to Afghanistan.

“A good friend of mine is a former Navy swimmer,” said Justin Kischefsky, the school’s sports information director. “She’s been in Iraq a couple of times. She’s an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) officer. There’s a lot of underwater work with that — defusing bombs and mines — it’s not an easy job.”

Gordon is going to be a Marine pilot which means — after graduation, six months at Quantico, Va., then two years of flight school in Pensacola, Fla. — she’ll likely end up in Afghanistan or Iraq, depending on how those wars are going.

Reed, as a surface warfare officer, could be in the Persian Gulf on a ship a month after graduation.

As you talked about former Navy athletes, the conversation became more somber when you mentioned football players like J.P. Blecksmith and Ron Winchester killed in Iraq.

“That’s why I have so much respect for these girls,” said Harris. “It takes a special person to say, ‘I want to do something bigger in life. I’m willing to put myself on the line to make an impact for the greater good.’ ”

The Navy players all could have played someplace else.

Reed — voted the Academic All-American of the Year this fall by the nation’s sports information directors and ranked second in the Overall Order of Merit among the 1,064 Midshipmen in the Class of 2010 — was one of the nation’s best soccer goalkeepers while playing for Navy this fall. Coming out of Bishop Chatard High at Indianapolis she was recruited by the UConn, Penn and Illinois soccer programs.

Myers had basketball offers from several schools, but said her “destiny” was a service academy. One of her sisters is a senior at Air Force, another graduated from West Point. Her brother plays for the Navy football team and her parents were both in the Air Force.

Gordon’s grandfather was a Navy admiral. Her brother just finished a Marine tour in Iraq.

Yet, they say, all those familial associations don’t quite prepare you for going through the regimentation and commitment needed to get through the academy.

“What struck me most since coming here is the camaraderie of the team,” said Harris. “At other schools that’s something coaches fight to get players to understand — the importance of working together, buying in, knowing your role. Here from the time of their plebe summer, they learn how to rely on everyone else to get through this together.”

Women first joined the academy in 1976 and now they make up about 17 percent of the graduating classes. After their playing days, the athletes have at least a five-year service commitment.

“For a lot of us, basketball can be an escape from everything,” Gordon said. “It’s the best part of our day and we take it as serious as anyone, but we also know there’s a lot more to our lives.”

And, it turns out, a lot of other people do, too.

“Here’s a good story,” Kischefsky said. “Between Christmas in 2001 and New Year’s — the first holidays after the 9/11 attacks — our team was in New York and we were taking them over to see the big tree at the Rockefeller Center.

“The girls were all in their Service Dress Blue uniforms trying to get across the street. A New York policeman saw them and stopped traffic so they could walk over. As soon as they got near the tree, it was like the sea parting. The crowd saw them in uniform and made a path, giving them high-fives, thanking them, cheering them.

“We tried to get a team photo at the tree, but we never could because everyone in the crowd came up to get a picture with girls at the tree. They all wanted to remember a special moment.”

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