Going back as far as kindergarten, it was evident that Parrish Gaines was unusually driven.

"Parrish was so competitive. I remember his teacher would tell me how much he liked things to be perfect. He wanted to be no. 1," said Delanna Johnson-Malone, Gaines' mother. "In elementary school, if somebody got a 98 on a test, Parrish wanted to get a 99. An `A' wasn't good enough. He wanted the highest `A.'

"He busted his lip one time on the playground, just because he was diving to pick up a ball before someone else did," she added. "His [former] teachers still ask about him. They say they wish they had 30 students like him. But Parrish doesn't like to brag and doesn't like people bragging about him. Sometimes, I have to tell him to relax. He's very serious."

Not much essentially has changed about Gaines, Navy's senior free safety and co-captain, who aims to be commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps upon his graduation in May with a Bachelor's degree in political science.

His teammates say it was a no-brainer that Gaines would be named Navy's defensive captain in his final year in Annapolis. His organized, hustling, day-to-day approach to the classroom, football practice and strength and conditioning work, in addition to his ability to tutor younger players on the nuances of the Navy defense and the tests that dominate the life of a Midshipman, made Gaines an easy voting choice.

More proof of Gaines' value to the Mids can be found in the numbers. Since his insertion into the starting lineup late in his freshman season, Gaines has started 40 consecutive games - the first 24 at right cornerback, the last 16 at safety.

In his previous two seasons, he ranked among the team's leading tacklers and showed a knack for making big plays. There was his game-clinching interception that sealed a 31-30, Homecoming victory over Indiana in his sophomore year. And his end-zone pick last year that sealed a thrilling, triple-overtime win at San Jose State.

This fall, Gaines, 6-feet-2, 200 pounds, has patrolled center field adeptly by making a team-high three interceptions. Two of them killed drives by Ohio State and Temple deep in Navy territory, the second of which helped the Mids preserve a crucial, 31-24 victory in Philadelphia in week two. The third, which came during Navy's recent blowout win over VMI, resulted in a 39-yard return for a touchdown.

Oh, and there is an occasional lighter side to the serious Gaines, who is a native of Smyrna, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. Senior defensive back George Jamison said Gaines sometimes sheds his businesslike demeanor to reveal a sly sense of humor, punctuated by a hysterical laugh.

"We'll get him going at team dinners and we'll hear that laugh, and it makes me laugh. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard," Jamison said.

"Parrish was really shy when he got here, but he will peel back the shell and let you see what he's all about, once he knows you. He's mainly just a competitor who makes plays and hates to lose. He'll get so mad if he loses in a [pickup] basketball game. I've had to calm him down a bit."

Gaines, who has started since midway through his freshman year in the defensive backfield, remains the no-nonsense, self-motivated student-athlete who rolled through the academy gates with a plan. Despite coming directly from Smyrna High School without a year of prep school to assist him, Gaines wasted little time making his presence felt as a plebe in shoulder pads.

The Navy coaching staff could not help but notice how quickly Gaines absorbed the team's defensive scheme, how crisply he went through drills in the hot sun, and how relatively unaffected Gaines seemed by the exhaustion surrounding plebe summer. What kept him out of the starting lineup at right cornerback in the earlier part of the 2011 season was a tender hamstring.

"I felt like I was tired 24/7. I survived plebe summer, and I felt like I barely survived that first semester. Don't think I caught up on sleep until Christmas break," said Gaines, who recalled the experience of first proving himself under the exacting eyes of defensive coordinator Buddy Green.

"Coach Green is pretty intense the way he works you. When he yells at you, he's got all of the words in the book. You realize that he's just trying to make you better. It's better to just do your 50 up-downs and move on. You've got to run around and play fast and feel like anything that goes wrong is your fault."

If Gaines was feeling tired that summer during preseason camp, it didn't show much to Green.

"Plebes tend to lose their legs. By the time they get [to football practice in late July], they're not as fast as they thought they were when they first got here. And they usually don't look that sharp in camp because of that," Green said.

"Parrish was different. He stood out by the way he accepted the challenge in camp. He was a smart player who picked things up really well, and he was one of our better guys in one-on-one coverage and one of our better tacklers right away."

"You knew Parrish had the size and range we needed in the secondary when he got here," added Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo. "But Parrish had this mindset and football IQ, without the wobbly legs you expect from a plebe. He never flinched or complained. That told me something, because Buddy is a really tough critic."

And Gaines validated the coaches' thinking immediately. After his hamstring problem subsided and he had tested the waters with a limited role in two games, Gaines moved into the starting lineup for the first time at - of all places - South Bend. While Navy's 56-14 loss to Notre Dame was forgettable, Gaines' seven tackles served as an affirmation. He belonged.

Gaines finished that freshman year with 30 tackles. By the time preseason camp rolled around before the 2012 season, Gaines was brimming with confidence. He was quickly becoming the anchor of the Mids' secondary, with his ability to cover and tackle from the island known as the right corner.

That year, Navy reversed its only losing season since 2002 by finishing 8-5. The Mids took back the Commander-In-Chief's trophy they had surrendered to Air Force the year before, and did it with the nation's 40th-ranked pass defense. Besides that huge pick against Indiana, Gaines racked up 69 tackles, including seven against Army and a career-high 12 stops at San Jose State.

Last year, Gaines' versatility really showed. Midway through the season, when Gaines was playing as well as anyone on a unit that would hold eight opponents under their scoring average, safety Chris Ferguson was forced to give up football after suffering multiple concussions.

The coaches turned to Gaines, who stepped in smoothly to man a much different position.

"At corner, you're seeing your man [opposing receiver] and only keying on half of the [offensive] formation. The angle at which you make tackles is from the side, which is easier," Gaines said. "If you're in single coverage, you have your eyes on your man.

"At free safety, everything is different. I'm playing the field. I've got two or three receivers I'm worrying about, and I pretty much have my eyes on the quarterback [in pass coverage]. I have to run straight downhill and square up to make tackles. I'm more susceptible to getting juked."

The transition was pretty much seamless. Besides squaring up effectively enough to make 65 tackles, Gaines picked off three passes and was remarkably consistent at keeping the game in front of him. In 2013, Navy was the only defense in the country that did not allow a pass completion of 50 yards or more.

"Parrish is like a conductor. He puts you in the right spot where you can do your best work," sophomore cornerback Brandon Clements said. "He sort of fills in the blank for you."

"I've looked up to [Gaines] from the jump," added junior rover back Kwazel Bertrand. "In terms of covering and breaking on the ball, he's got the best technique. He watches the most film. He doesn't do speeches. He just goes from drill to drill and he's the guy out in front. Parrish is like the teacher's pet, but he knows more than anyone else about what's going on with our defense."

Gaines comes from good lineage. His uncle, Bobby Johnson, was the top receiver on the 1986 New York Giants team that won the Super Bowl.

"My Mom didn't let me play any sports until I was 10, but I came out of the womb wanting to play football," Gaines said. "I remember having this foam football that I took everywhere with me. I slept with it. I wanted to be a receiver like my uncle."

By the time Gaines got to Smyrna High, he was a fine receiver and defensive back, and his leadership qualities were emerging. By his sophomore year, he was starting at free safety on the varsity. By his junior season, he had shifted to cornerback and also was a receiver with the first-team offense. That year, Gaines also was elected class president and captain of the football team.

By his senior season, Gaines had committed to Navy, and he doubled up again as class president and team captain, while starting both ways for the football team, which went 13-2 and lost in the state finals to Maryville, 23-21.

"If you went off the measurables - how fast you are, how high you can jump - he's not going to blow you away," Smyrna football coach Matt Williams said. "But when you turn on the tape, you know Parrish is a player. His competitiveness and instincts jump out.

"He's such a quiet, humble, unassuming kid. Grades really mattered to him. He never fell in with the wrong crowd. He never made excuses. We have a lot of kids now who are pretty much the opposite of the way Parrish was at that age. We're struggling to find leaders like him," said Williams.