11/14/2004 - Football
Aaron Polanco: Navy's Silent, But Tough, Leader

At eight inches wide, ten inches high, they are hardly larger than life.

And where displayed, hanging from a wall on the second floor of the Naval Academy's Ricketts Hall, they're all but hidden from public view.

Seen mostly by those on the inside, it's obvious they weren't positioned to attract great fanfare. One row above another, in the hallway connecting the world of athletics to the temporary home of the physics department.

They are anything but ornate, surrounded only by simple blue frames and affixed to a wall of cinder blocks coated with primer and white paint.

But for those who take time to make note, there is a realization that the subjects - if not the photos themselves - occupy a very special place. Each is a Navy football captain.

Some, like the great Napolean McCallum - his heel kicked up, one hand extended while the other holds a football - are pictured in a playful pose. Others, such as the late Alton Grizzard - the captain of all captains - are seated in much more staid portraits.

Yet, however they're photographed and whatever their posture, they are all seen a certain way - as men chosen by their peers to be leaders of leaders.

An awesome responsibility, really. And one not lost on Aaron Polanco.

Not today, or for that matter any other he's spent as a Navy football player.

"You'd see all the pictures," Polanco recently recalled, thinking back to a much earlier time in his career. "I always thought to myself that would be a great accomplishment, to be remembered as a captain, especially with the tradition at (the Academy)."

Which is exactly how it'll be, even if Polanco's own picture has yet to go up alongside his predecessors.

Last spring teammates made him their offensive captain, elevating the soon-to-be-senior to a role coveted on any team, but especially so at a service academy.

Ever since, Polanco has lived up to his end of the deal. Mainly through deeds, if not words.

"Aaron's done a nice job," says head coach Paul Johnson. "I'm pleased with him. He's a quiet leader, not a real talker.

"But sometimes (the less vocal) are the most effective leaders. You don't have to talk to lead."

Instead, you do it by example.

And if you lead as Polanco has in his first and final year as the regular quarterback, you do it best by standing up to pressure, making the right decisions and delivering the decisive plays.

All of the above he's done in helping the Mids to a 7-2 record, starting with a season-opening victory over Duke, when Polanco rushed for 130 yards and completed 8-of-9 passes.

Other single-game totals stand out. Against Northeastern he rushed for 143 yards, bettered only by the 179 gained at the expense of Rice. At Tulsa he went 6-for-8 passing in a 29-0 rout, a week before throwing for 176 yards in a 29-26 win over Vanderbilt.

Still, while numbers speak to performance, it's Polanco's unflinching response to moments of doubt that define his leadership.

Where others might panic, he's stayed poised.

"His expression never changes," says quarterbacks coach Ivan Jasper. "(Aaron) goes out there and makes plays. He's real cool, real polished."

Like in the Vanderbilt game, when Polanco confronted a second-half deficit and came face to face with a rushing defender. Rolling right, somehow a sidestep left bought the extra half second to find an open receiver.

Thirty-four yards later Eric Roberts was at the Commodores' 7-yard line. Two plays later Navy owned the lead for good.

"You're just trying not to get tackled," Polanco says, downplaying his effort. "I was lucky enough to avoid that guy and find Eric. I guess you could say it's instinct.

"The game never works out perfectly. If it did, you'd run one play and score a touchdown."

The very next week, in a nationally televised visit to Air Force, the Mids were more than far from perfect. In fact, they were 86 yards from the Falcon end zone, 19 yards from merely converting a first down.

By then the screws had tightened on a Navy offense struggling through the second half. Air Force had rallied to tie, gain momentum and pin the Mids deep in their own end on third down.

Presiding over the huddle, Polanco didn't resort to any classic one-liners. He simply stressed the obvious.

"The defense had been playing well," he says of the thoughts he conveyed to teammates. "It's tough to ask the defense to be on the field the entire second half. We had to do something to give the defense a rest and make some plays."

Enough said. It was time to make not just some play, but the play of the night.

Polanco took the snap, scrambled away from the pocket - barely outrunning the Falcons' pursuit - and spotted the diminutive Marco Nelson streaking across the field. The throw, catch and run resulted in a 66-yard gain.

"It's not so much something you say right before that play," Polanco says. "It just shows a lot of team character. Marco didn't give up and the line gave me enough time on the backside. Everybody came together."

To Jasper, such is a play that boils down to one thing. Either the quarterback has it in him, or he doesn't.

"There's a lot of things in coaching that you can't teach," said Jasper, who played the same position at the University of Hawaii. "That's just (Aaron), having that ability.

"He has an uncanny ability to make plays."

The last of which on that night meant securing the long snap and holding the ball for Geoff Blumenfeld's game-winning field goal in the waning seconds.

"You always have that feeling just not to drop that ball," Polanco says. "Just holding the ball is more pressure. It's just you, the snapper and Geoff. You have to get the spot down before anything can happen."

Of course, he got it down and what happened remains the high point of Navy's season to date. It's also a long way from the low point of his lone career start prior to 2004.

That was in November of his sophomore season, only a week after Polanco had replaced an injured Craig Candeto and nearly guided the Mids to an upset of Notre Dame.

"I remember thinking, 'This is my first college start?' It didn't work out the way I wanted," he says of the 38-0 loss the Mids suffered to Connecticut. "It was a nasty day, cold and wet. That's how it worked out."

Some difference from the previous Saturday, the unseasonably warm afternoon when Navy came so close in a 30-23 loss to the Irish. Seven days had seen Polanco go from near hero of an historic win to this, an overall team showing as dreary as the setting.

In life, you live and learn. Thus, in time, it would prove an experience as valuable as any other.

"It was a great experience," says Polanco, comparing the lessons of a day like that with those of Academy life in general. "That first year (at the Naval Academy) you're dealing with adversity the entire time you're here, but it's not the same as being on the football field. I had gone from a high to a low."

Polanco soon returned to his role as backup - for the rest of that fall and all of 2003. Again, there was much to learn.

"I saw how well (Craig) was prepared for each game," said Polanco, who stayed with Candeto when the Mids were on the road. "He didn't panic, he was cool and calm.

"The quarterback has a lot of responsibilities (in Navy's triple-option offense), with checks and reads. Getting to be roommates, I saw how he got prepared."

At the same time, as Japser points out, Polanco and Candeto were handling roughly the same amount of snaps every day in practice.

Unlike many pro or college teams who prepare the first team often at the expense of the second unit, the Mids alternate personnel. Repetition after repetition.

That, along with studying the option intricacies, gave Polanco a better understanding of Johnson's offense.

"I tried to study the offense," Polanco said. "That's really all you can do, studying what you're supposed to be looking for."

"You look closer, watch more film, play the game in your mind," says Jasper, who'd undergone the same process as a collegian when Johnson was his offensive coordinator. "(Aaron) asked more questions."

For the most part, Polanco found the answers on the field, as he says, "with getting the opportunity to play."

Doing so while remaining mindful of a quality he'd observed in Candeto.

"(Craig) had fun with it," says Polanco. "You can't get so wound up in it that you're not having fun."

By last spring, he was ready do just that.

"It was a big deal," Polanco says of being named starter. "(Coach Johnson) told me it was my job to lose. I had been in the system three years, so I understood all the stuff on paper.

"Coach Johnson and coach Jasper saw that I was making good decisions. I felt that I was ready to run the offense. I finally got the feeling it didn't matter what the defense was doing, that (I) knew all the checks for it."

His coaches saw other attributes, first in spring and later, when the Mids reconvened in August. For Jasper, it was how Polanco protected the ball. For Johnson, it was something else.

"I saw how tough he was," says Johnson. "I always respected (Aaron), but I got a newfound respect for him in fall camp when I saw how tough he was.

"Is he perfect? No. Nobody is. (But) I'll go to battle with him. I like to go with guys who are mentally tough."

Having long ago proved his mettle, these days Polanco is an untouchable on the practice field. After all, he's exposed to enough hits on game day.

There is, however, one Mid - a scout-team defender - who's prone to take the liberty of taking his shot at the quarterback. Not out of malice but, actually, out of brotherly love.

As number 9 in white, he is the mirror image of the number 6 in blue. Were he to sit in for that captain's portrait, none of us would ever know the difference.

And yet, he is a year behind his identical twin and a relative unknown to the general public - unlike the brother who plays the most visible position on the team.

Nonetheless, James Polanco is perfectly happy to be where he is and Aaron Polanco is happy to have him here. Even if it means the occasional mid-week run-in.

"(In practice) they're not allowed to hit the quarterback," Aaron explains. "But we'll always run up and start hitting each other for the fun of hit. We're still brothers, like little kids when we're together."

Especially after going their separate ways out of high school near Austin, Texas. While Aaron was recruited to the Academy for football, James opted to attend Texas Tech.

"After having him there every day in high school," James says of their time apart, "It was very difficult."

Two of six children - they have four sisters - raised by Robbye Adams and Hector Polanco, a pair of retired police officers, Aaron and James talked by phone every day.

Until the other half decided to move much closer. As in his own room at Bancroft Hall.

"That year of college life (at Texas Tech) was fun, but he knew what I was doing here and understood the advantages of it," Aaron says of James' decision to transfer into the Academy.

Besides, James always had an interest in the military and, as well as the influence of a grandfather who served in World War II, helped shape Aaron's career ambition to be a pilot - preferably in the Marine Corps.

Still trying to overcome the setback of a broken leg, James is cast in a role that for now allows only practice appearances simulating an opponent. His view of home games is from the stands.

And what attention he receives for football is often a case of mistaken identity - attracting praise intended for Aaron. None of which really seems to bother him.

"If (Aaron's) doing well, I'm doing well," says James, who's more apt to joke about the advantages of having an upper-class look-alike at a place like the Academy.

"That just shows his character and how tough he is, not playing each week," says Aaron. "He's still out there with a smile on his face.

"I'd love to see him on the field, for just one play or the whole game. (But) he tells me how much fun has up there (in the stands). It means a lot to have his support."

A year from now, the family legacy in Annapolis will belong solely to James.

Left behind will be his brother's legacy as a Navy captain. That belongs to all of us.

"I can't ask for a lot more than I've had in my life up to this point," Aaron Polanco says of the way he'd like to be thought of when his photo hangs from that wall in Ricketts Hall. "I'd like to be remembered as being tough.

"I just have that mentality of being remembered as a leader of this team, the leader of a winning team."