Football

"More Than A Coach"

“More Than A Coach”

by Drew Duffy 12/12/22

Growing up a Navy Football fan, there are a few things that I confidently associate with the team. What comes to mind most often is the triple option, the annual Army-Navy game, and Ken Niumatalolo. The United States Naval Academy has produced some electric football players over the years that I have been watching, namely Kennan Reynolds and more recently, Malcolm Perry. Both players were dazzling runners, leaders of the offense, and the best player on their team. While many fans could grow up idolizing these great athletes, there is a much greater appreciation that I have now, as a college student, for the man who brought them into his program and allowed them to thrive in the environment. Ken Niumatalolo is the common denominator for all that Navy Football has enjoyed over the greater part of the last two decades. While my admiration started because he was the mastermind behind my favorite college football team, the appreciation that I have for him has now been engulfed by my respect for him as a leader and as a human. While I have never met Coach Ken, he exemplifies what a good and decent human ought to be. Be it videos, press columns, or even postgame interviews, he is a man who cares about his faith, his family, and his team, which in turn results in his country as well. To me, it is a little bit odd to have such an admiration for someone whom I never met. Though, the nonexistent relationship is irrelevant. He has prepared a generation of leaders to enter the strongest fighting force in the history of the world and has done it with grace and a mild temper. Again, not being on the grounds at practice or in meetings, I have never really seen his harsher coaching side. But what sets him apart from other coaches around the nation is his care for his players. It appears that he truly does love who he coaches, but more importantly, what these young men stand for. Navy football does not get the four and five star recruits that larger schools enjoy. They often get the two or even three stars that are committed to a cause much greater than football. Ken welcomes all with open arms. He understands the difficulties and unorthodox nature that coaching football at a service academy entails. For him, he knows it's bigger than football, always has been, always will be. As the Naval Academy goes out to search for a new coach to lead the program, there will be a gaping hole in the minds of Navy Football fans for years to come. The schemes can be adjusted, new players recruited, though the one missing component is the care and kindness of the man at the helm. Coach Ken is someone that we should all look up to in this day in age. Never criticizing people for what they weren’t, but accepting for what they are. One college football program will be very lucky if Coach Ken decides to stay in the coaching sphere. Navy will have to move on the best they can, but the next coach will be stepping into an impossible situation of stepping into some of the biggest shoes, and biggest hearts, that college football has ever seen. 

Beat Army.