11/19/2002 - Football
A Little Giant Speaks From The Heart

Perhaps you've already heard at least some of what's about to be read.

Just maybe, you were within earshot of what was said on the radio at halftime of Saturday's home finale for the Midshipmen.

More than likely, you were either driving away in your car or being driven under grandstand cover, seeking an escape from all the miserable elements of a long afternoon at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

A chill rain falling. A persistent wind blowing. And an Academy grad delivering a cold-but-candid assessment of his alma mater's football team in the midst - and mist - of a 38-0 loss to Connecticut.

"I'm not a guy that pulls any punches," Phil McConkey said with his first words to a Navy Radio Network audience he last addressed on homecoming in 1999.

For the next few minutes, the 1978 team captain spoke from the heart. And if there's one thing Phil McConkey always had more than any other as a player, it's heart.

He's the son of a blue-collar father who supported his family by regularly finishing his shifts as a cop, before heading off to a construction job in their native Buffalo, N.Y. As an all-state athlete in high school, the younger McConkey was unable to push the scale past 150 pounds.

His college football options were few. So he came to Annapolis, where by his senior season the Mids were beating the likes of Boston College and Pittsburgh, while routing their service academy rivals as Commander-In-Chief's champions.

In that final campaign, McConkey and his teammates went 9-3, their losses in succession to Notre Dame, Syracuse and Florida State. They rebounded by drilling Army, 28-0, in Philadelphia.

They soon went West for the Holiday Bowl and the school's first postseason appearance in 14 years. They fell behind Brigham Young, but eventually rallied and prevailed by a 23-16 score. The difference was a 65-yard pass from Bob Lesczcynski to McConkey, the game's MVP.

Six years later, his commitment to the country fulfilled, a 27-year-old McConkey was invited to a rookie tryout for the New York Giants, whose head coach Bill Parcells had spent a season in the same role for Air Force.

Parcells was impressed enough to give McConkey a shot at the team's regular training camp. And the rest being history, McConkey went on to catch a touchdown pass from Phil Simms in a blowout of Denver in Super Bowl XXI.

Wearing the ring he earned from that victory - a championship gem too gaudy to go unnoticed - McConkey returned to Annapolis for this season's home finale. Reunited with teammates who helped make the last great era in Navy football a reality, he visited the broadcast booth at the half.

There he shared observations about the present and opinions for the future. Mostly, he talked about attitude.

"This whole thing is about attitude," said McConkey, whose own attitude had long enabled him to overcome a lack of altitude - especially by NFL standards. "If you can teach these youngsters that they can play, compete with and win against anybody, that's the first step."

Granted, we've already gone there. I've even written about a "winning attitude" in this very space before. But, considering the source last Saturday, it's a topic definitely worth re-visiting.

One, it appears, McConkey's considered at length.

"I was thinking about that same question," he said, when asked whether such mentality is inherent or ingrained over time, "why myself and the other first classmen when I played here had that ability to lead and to expect the best out of everybody, hold everybody accountable.

"And I think it was the guys before us."

McConkey recalled the impression someone like Chet Moeller had created as an All-America defensive back and co-captain of the '75 Midshipmen.

"We had somebody we could emulate," he says. "We had guys we could point to. We knew we could win because it was done in the past.

"I was playing at a time when Air Force was looking to us. They were trying to figure out how we were (winning). And it's just so hard to believe the tables have turned."

That said, McConkey suggests one way to spin the table back around is to rely on the best examples from the program's recent past.

"Bring in some guys who played on the team in '96," he said, referring to the Aloha Bowl champs, many of whom - it should be noted - have renewed contact in the last year. "Bring some guys from the early eighties and my era and show (the current players)."

Certainly, role models by themselves won't lift the Mids from the doldrums of the last few seasons. But using them can only help restore Navy football.

Such a practice has its rightful place at other colleges and in the professional major leagues.

A lifelong New York Mets fan, it pains me to use their cross-town counterparts as an example of sorts. Nonetheless, as gifted as the Yankees have been, there's no denying how much they've benefited by educating their modern-day millionaires on the importance of Pinstripes. That's why every afternoon around 'The Stadium' in the Bronx is like an Old Timer's Day.

Of course, luminaries like Joe Bellino and Roger Staubach have long served as Navy's Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford. So to can a McConkey and Moeller, Clint Bruce and Ben Fay, to become the Mids' answers to Don Mattingly and Reggie Jackson.

McConkey is encouraged by what he sees as an interest in opening the door of the Mids' not-so-distant past to unlock the future.

"I like the fact that the administration right now seems to be dedicated to doing whatever it takes to win," he said, alluding to an earlier meeting with athletic director Chet Gladchuk. "Somehow, it has to permeate, it's got to translate down to these players to give them an attitude that they can win and compete with anybody."

Even if you've heard it all before and don't quite agree, or you're shaking your head in dissent, you can't begin to dismiss at least one thing McConkey brought to the booth on Saturday.

Motivation itself, of someone who wants the Mids of today to enjoy what he and his teammates still cherish. Nearly a quarter century later. And for however many more years to come.

"I've got great memories," McConkey says of the team he led and the time he spent here. "We did something special that nobody thought we could do. I'm taking that to my grave.

"These kids have to know how special their opportunity is. They only have one, they've got to have the attitude to do something about it."

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