Oct. 20, 2006
So this is what a so-called off-day is like for Rob Caldwell.
Without a game the following weekend, it should be that rare in-season Monday to rest your body, refresh your mind and catch up on all things unrelated to Navy football.
Instead, here sits Caldwell fulfilling one obligation before another. His tie knotted, the coat to his Service Dress Blue uniform buttoned up, he's been asked to cram his life's story into a half-hour interview.
Which, by the way, he's doing remarkably well - with the kind of positive energy one's come to expect having watched him perform the last two years at linebacker. Leaving no blanks to fill in, he also leaves you the impression that all is well in the life of Rob Caldwell.
Despite a difficult last 48 hours for his Navy football family. Let alone the reality that precious `spare time' is being spent here, in this drab second-floor room decorated only by columns of filing cabinets, a table and an odd assortment of chairs.
Sentence after sentence, Caldwell remains mostly upbeat - though the conversation must cover such downers as the severe injury to teammate Brian Hampton as well as the Mids' recent loss to Rutgers.
Of course, there's no point in dwelling too much on disappointment. Especially for someone like Caldwell, who says he tries "to live in the moment."
And at this moment, he has much to feel good about, including an opportunity to watch his beloved Chicago Bears try to stay unbeaten later tonight against Arizona.
But first, there's also what awaits Caldwell as soon as he's excused to trek upstairs to the far more plush surroundings of the suite that houses the Navy football coaches.
That's where today a television crew has turned a lobby full of books and trophies into a set for a Paramount Pictures production that will introduce CBS's coverage of the upcoming Navy-Notre Dame game.
It will be Caldwell's mission - having been chosen to accept it - to then star as Navy's very own Ethan Hunt, the lead character from the `Mission Impossible' movies. Setting the mood for the broadcast, it's easy to understand the network's angle, with the Mids trying to end a 42-game losing streak vs. the Fighting Irish.
Supposedly, Tom Cruise was originally expected to do it. But it's just as well Rob got the role.
For starters, Cruise can devote more time to the study of psychiatry. Plus, there's no need to scale down the set to make the actor seem taller. Nor any reason to employ a stunt double. Caldwell's bruises and scratches are authentic.
And besides, while a young Cruise only portrayed a hard-nosed football player on screen, Caldwell isn't role playing as such - having made all the right moves in real life to reach the national stage as a Navy team captain.
"It's a great honor to represent not just the football team but the whole Naval Academy, kind of being the spokesman (this) week for that game," Caldwell said, moments before delivering his lines and shortly after becoming a bit more presentable. "I had to get a haircut, because my hair was growing over my ears. My roommate was like, `Is this going to be on TV? Sit down. I'll cut your hair.'"
Already back in August, Caldwell was pictured in Sports Illustrated as one of college football's big men on campus. Now, the country is about to see and hear this kid from northwest Indiana.
"It's kind of crazy just thinking that I went to a small Catholic high school and played 3-A football and now I'm going to be on CBS," he says. "All my friends, I know they'll be watching the game back home in Indiana."
Caldwell's Indiana - known by locals as "The Region" - is less a flat land filled with fields and basketball hoops and more a blue-collar, broad-shouldered extension of Chicago. It's where you'll find deep dish pizza, where the Bears are `Da Bears' and where high school teams go by nicknames like the `Brickies'
And there's no better representative than Caldwell, right down to the cut at the bridge of his nose that just won't go away. As if the birthmark of a linebacker.
"I did it in high school a few times," says Caldwell, who graduated from Andrean High in Gary, Ind. "Once I started getting a chance to play here, it's been wide open ever since.
"Some people say it's the mark of a linebacker, looking at old pictures, so it's pretty cool."
As blasphemous as it might seem for a Bears diehard to be likened to a Green Bay Packer, Caldwell seems to relish any comparisons between his appearance and that of NFL Hall of Famer Ray Nitschke - a man's man, a linebacker's linebacker.
There are many other ways besides blood, sweat or tears that Caldwell resembles the very best seemingly born to play the position. If not what's beyond control - overall size or speed - then in the way he drives himself to make the most of what he has.
Just ask Jake Biles, who finished second to Caldwell among Navy's leading tacklers in 2005. As a graduate last spring, Biles is assisting the Navy coaching staff before attending Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in January.
"(Rob's) a great linebacker," says Biles. "He tough and he's knowledgeable about the game, he understands our defense and he studies enough of the opponent's tape to really be on top of things when it comes to what plays and formations they're running. He's really the complete package at inside linebacker."
What burns inside that package is what impresses head coach Paul Johnson.
"Rob plays with such intensity," Johnson says. "He plays with a great deal of intensity and effort, sometimes maybe so much that he gets himself in trouble. But he loves to play the game and he loves to compete."
Not unlike Caldwell's own personal favorite, the Bears' Brian Urlacher.
"I know he plays with a lot of energy and a lot of emotion, he flies around from sideline to sideline, making plays," says Caldwell, who keeps a football signed by Urlacher in his room. "That's something I try to do. You always hear people talking about his motor running. That's something I try to pride myself on."
"(Rob's) got a lot of the same qualities, just being around the football all the time, getting guys pumped up, knowing what they need to do and leading by example," says Biles.
And some example it is.
A year ago, Caldwell ranked 10th nationally by averaging 11.5 tackles per game. His 140 tackles were the most at Navy since Javier Zuluaga totaled 144 in 1993. Included for Caldwell were 21 in a win over Air Force alone.
With numbers like those as a junior, he entered this season mentioned on the `watch lists' for some of college football's most prestigious awards. Athlon magazine went so far as to appoint Caldwell a preseason All-America.
Through seven games this fall, Caldwell has again made more tackles than any other Midshipman - with 60 overall - while remaining a steadying influence on a solid defense.
"Rob helps us out a lot," says defensive end Tye Adams. "He's got a great overall understanding of the entire defense. He pretty much runs the show."
"Linebacker is like the quarterback of the defense," explains Caldwell. "I've got to know where everybody lines up and make the defensive front calls and help the secondary with their calls.
"You need to have a calm readiness around you. That's how I try play. You have to keep it level-headed and not to get too excited, because when that happens, things start going awry and people line up in different spots. You need to get them in their spots so we have a chance to succeed on defense."
In that regard, Caldwell laughingly admits he's come a long way in the short time since becoming a starter last season.
"I was like a young pup out there," he says. "You're excited about everything and running around. But as you get more experience you learn to harness that energy. You put it into different plays instead of celebrating after one play, lining up a few seconds later and realizing, `Man, I'm tired.'"
More than ever before, the circumstances encircling this year's meeting with Notre Dame call for Caldwell and his veteran teammates to assert their leadership and create a calming effect.
Especially in light of Hampton's absence opposite a nationally-ranked foe that hasn't lost to the Mids since 1963.
"I think it's a (test) to tell us what kind of team we have and I think we have the right players here to respond well to that," says Caldwell. "I think that's a good thing about the players we have here, everyone's going to be a leader, going to be commissioned. It's something they should be good at, we take classes on it."
Concerning Caldwell's own commissioning, he intends to lead his next team in the Marine Corps. Just like so many role models he's observed throughout his Academy career.
"The first Marine I met was Captain (Joe) Speed," Caldwell said of the Mids' former military liaison, who left the Corps to enter the civilian world of college coaching and now works with the Navy secondary. "It was just like, `Wow.' He walked in with his green uniform and his tie. He just looked like a Marine, the way he carried himself and the way he would do things. I could see myself like that."
So could former teammates like Ben Mathews, Tyson Stahl and T.J. Costello, who've already gone on from graduation to travel the path Caldwell plans to pursue. And while frequently hearing their insights on the life he's willing to choose, Caldwell also pays close attention to people like Maj. J.R. Clearfield and Lt. Ryan Hamilton.
The former is Navy's sprint football coach, the latter an ex-linebacker now working to oversee the military and academic obligations of Caldwell and his teammates. Not long ago, both led Marines into harm's way.
"He led Marines in Iraq and just came back. He's a warrior," Caldwell said, when asked about Hamilton, specifically. "There's a lot of Marines on `The Yard' who can bring that experience. You just try to learn and soak it all in, because one day I'll probably be there."
If, when that time arrives, Hamilton is confident Caldwell will answer duty's call.
"His peers really respect him and that's something his Marines will see right off the bat, because Rob's going to have that respect wherever he goes," Hamilton said. "I believe his Marines will respect him a great deal and follow his lead because of his intensity, his drive and his work ethic."
And the mindset of the position he plays.
"I think the linebacker's mentality is a good mentality for the Marine Corps," said Hamilton. "They're physical, they're aggressive and they like to try to make things happen."
But before his next life as an officer, Caldwell must be all those things and more in this life - playing against the one program he's known better than any other since childhood.
Growing up near South Bend, Caldwell spent Fridays playing high school games and many a Saturday sitting in the stands at Notre Dame Stadium. Just imagine what it was like a year ago, returning for his first start against the Fighting Irish.
"It was unreal," Caldwell says. "I took it all in the day before at practice. The stadium is empty but there are 70,000 seats around you. I've been there so many times that I know what's it is like (on game day). It was kind of eerie being in there without any music and not hearing the band play.
"It was just wild lining up across from guys you read about all the time. To play in that atmosphere under those conditions, it was just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
In fact, as a high school senior, Caldwell attended the Notre Dame football camp, where he found himself in the middle of a 7-on-7 drill showcasing a couple of ex-Irish coach Ty Willingham's prized recruits.
"I was out there watching Brady Quinn pass to Jeff Samardzija before anyone else really saw them," Caldwell says with a laugh about the future Irish combination so many defensive coordinators see over and over in their nightmares. "I always wanted to play on that field, whether for them or against them."
Caldwell wound up against them, in the blue and gold of Navy, despite the early and best intentions of his grandfather. Debbie Caldwell's father had served in the Air Force and suggested his grandson take a look at Colorado Springs. He'd even mentioned West Point, giving young Rob an Army football shirt.
Naturally, he's now become what Rob calls "the biggest Naval Academy fan that I know."
Thanks to a late-September weekend in 2002, when Rob's father Chris made the 700-mile drive - one he and his wife would make time and again the following four years - to Annapolis. The Mids lost to Duke, but won over a young man bound to become co-captain.
What clinched it for Caldwell was another visit he made shortly thereafter.
"I was paired with Ben Mathews and Bobby McClarin," he remembers. "I saw how those guys interacted, that they were best friends. That was something I wanted from my experience. The thing that really drew me was the relationship everyone had with each another."
Lately, Caldwell has spent a lot of time talking to those friends and wondering what it's going to be like experiencing what they've all gone through - when they've played their last play.
"I've been playing since I was in third grade," Caldwell said. "It's going by too fast. They don't really talk about it that much. It's one of those things I think you have to experience."
Doing just that, even as he spoke after a recent practice - wearing coaches' rain gear rather than a player's uniform - Biles indicated that for now, Caldwell realizes what's most important.
"I think the big thing Rob understands, and I think all of our seniors do a good job of understanding, is that you have to take advantage of every opportunity you get," Biles explained. "Just show up on Saturdays ready to play. Rob especially has done a good job of understanding that."
An understanding recently underscored, when his classmate Hampton had to leave the field on anything but his own terms.
"Always before games, and even in practice, you think, `This could be the last one, so what are you going to do to leave your legacy behind?'" says Caldwell. "That's one of those things we've talked about as a team. God forbid that would happen, but you need to go out there with that mentality and lay it all on the line."
When you do, left behind will be something far more meaningful than a magazine snapshot or a video clip.
"It's something that (I) learned a lot from those guys that came before us," says Caldwell, who ticked off the names of ex-teammates like McClarin, Stahl and Lane Jackson. "It's something that keeps going downhill.
"I hope when some of those (younger) guys learned something from me while I was here. If I could be mentioned with guys like that, then my goals will have been met."
