The tired, grim expression on Anthony Gargiulo's face captured a snapshot of a football season gone unexpectedly and relentlessly wrong for the Midshipmen. And the words of Navy's senior fullback and offensive captain – frank, self-doubting and uplifting – added a human sound to the team's painful bottom line.
Not long before Navy would suffer its seventh consecutive defeat against 11th ranked UCF to fall to 2-8, here was Gargiulo, vowing that he and the Mids would keep fighting hard, keep preparing for the next obstacle with renewed energy, as a bittersweet Senior Day approached against Tulsa.
Here was the 6-feet-2, 240-pound Gargiulo, with his long grind as a Navy football player nearing its end and this frustrating stretch run marking his collegiate ride in the game he has treasured since he began running over smaller tykes at age seven.
Here was Navy's admittedly unlikely co-captain, having ridden the Navy bench for his first two seasons, and having emerged last year with performances that helped the Mids achieve another winning season and bowl berth – only to lose his starting job as a senior to upstart sophomore Nelson Smith two months ago.
Here was Gargiulo, staring at success and failure, and what they mean in his competitive world and the all-important, bigger picture.
"Trust me. If anybody takes this burden [of losing] on the heaviest, it's definitely me. That's just the way I am," Gargiulo says wearily. "I usually don't start relaxing after a loss until maybe Wednesday or Thursday. Most times, I don't sleep for a couple of days after one."
"Thankfully, the guys I'm able and proud to represent as their captain have kept me going," he adds. "While we're not doing nearly as well as we intended or hoped for, we don't look at our record. We look at each week and come to practice ready to grind and go harder than we did the day before. The guys come out on Monday and Tuesday like we just beat Notre Dame. It's a great atmosphere."
Gargiulo, known affectionately as "Garge" in the Navy locker room, looks back on the past year and its mixed fortunes with both deep appreciation and a rueful shake of his head.
After battling for more than two seasons from deep down the Navy depth chart, Gargiulo was rewarded handsomely late in the 2017 campaign with three starts – with the first coming against UCF in a 31-21 loss at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium.
Stepping in for the injured Chris High, Gargiulo stepped up to rush for a career-high 34 yards, including a seven-yard touchdown run.
Two weeks later on November 17 – Senior Day – against SMU, with the Mids stung by three-game losing streak following a 5-0 start, Gargiulo would shine in a pivotal role in Navy's last-second, 43-40 victory that made the Mids bowl eligible for the 14th time in 15 seasons.
Gargiulo was at his punishing best that day, pounding the Mustangs on short runs, gashing their defense for large chunks of yardage. He had a career-long, 44-yard scamper in the first quarter, and scored a TD for the game's first points. On the game's winning drive late in the fourth quarter, he rumbled on back-to-back runs to gain a combined 50 yards. He would finish with a career-high 145 yards on 15 carries.
"What a huge day. It was great, helping to get us to a bowl game and winning that one for our seniors. Our offense was so on-point, starting with our blocking," Gargiulo recalls. "All I had to do on some plays was to run hard and straight and not trip. But it really didn't hit me until I started at Notre Dame [next week]. That feeling of 'Wow, I'm the guy.'"
A week later as a starter in a 24-17 loss in South Bend, Gargiulo hurt the Fighting Irish with 87 yards rushing on a career-high 20 carries. In the season finale, a 49-7 rout of Virginia in Annapolis in the Military Bowl, he contributed 40 more rushing yards to end the season with momentum. He lost only one yard on his 76 carries, wrapping the year with 423 yards and three TDs.
Then came the news that floored Gargiulo shortly after the season. He found out his teammates had voted him offensive captain.
"I was definitely shocked when I heard the news, mainly because I wasn't this big playmaker," says Gargoiulo, who envisioned a senior such as quarterback Zach Abey or slot back Tre Walker or offensive tackle mainstay Andrew Wood wearing that prestigious title.
"Sure, I'd had a few good games," he adds. "I figured maybe [the players chose me because everybody knew me as the big, friendly Italian guy."
The way fellow senior fullback Mike Martin sees it, Gargiulo should not have been surprised. Martin says "Garge" accumulated much respect in the locker room, due to the way he forged ahead as a young player with a head-down, chopping-wood approach to his job – from a non-lettering, scout team member in his plebe year to a special teams contributor as a sophomore to those breakout moments in '17.
"For a lot of us [seniors], it goes back to NAPS with [Gargiulo]. We were in the same platoon," says Martin, who recalls how Garguilo took most of the reps at fullback that year, while playing through a foot injury.
"[Gargiulo] showed back then that he was a workhorse. He had this quiet, authoritative way about him, but he was a welcoming dude who always looked out for his boys, just like now," he adds. "I knew after last season that 'Garge' was going to be a captain. I voted for him."
Gargiulo says he anticipated an especially challenging 2018 season. Besides entering preseason camp as the team's no. 1 fullback, there was his other huge job. He and defensive captain and safety Sean Williams would coordinate the important work as organizers, advisors and motivators, starting with running team workouts throughout the summer leading up to August camp.
The unexpected soon happened again. This time, it was Smith's impressive burst and athleticism that caught the coaches' eyes early, before leading them to make a change at fullback following Navy's 2-1 start.
Going into week four at SMU, Smith was elevated to a starting position, dropping Gargiulo to backup.
"That was the hardest meeting I've had with a player. I go back six years with Garge, when I got to know him [as a star at Colts Neck High School in New Jersey]. He's earned everything he has gotten in this program," says Mike Judge, who has coached Navy's fullbacks for 11 seasons who adds that Gargiulo was understandably angry about the switch.
"Nothing has come easy for Anthony here. As a younger player, he learned from guys like Chris Swain and Quentin Ezell and Shawn White," Judge adds. "Last year, there was Chris High and we moved Josh Walker [to fullback] and that was a tough pill for Anthony to swallow. Garge has always been so hard on himself. In the end, he just keeps on persevering like your typical, blue-collar worker. Sometimes, I wish he would have more self-confidence, but this place is tough."
Gargiulo, who has been bothered this season by a sore quadriceps, has shown renewed life of late. In Saturday's 35-24 loss at UCF, his nine carries for 54 yards marked a high point in a disappointing year.
Garguilo says the combination of his demotion and the losing streak left him reeling initially.
"Even if we beat a team, 45-0, I'm looking at little things I did wrong. I over-think things and go a little crazy in my own head," Gargiulo says. "I really look back at what I'm doing wrong, what I'm not doing to help our guys prepare better. Things have been better the last few weeks, but the whole experience [earlier] made me think, 'Do I deserve to be a captain?'"
Gargiulo certainly isn't the first former high school football star – and certainly not the first Midshipman – to find the Division I world enormously challenging.
While Gargiulo was setting school rushing records as a strapping, two-way player at Colts Neck High School near his northern Jersey hometown of Freehold, N.J. – the same stomping grounds of rock stars named Springsteen and Bon Jovi – he drew his share of recruiting interest.
Big-time football schools such as Penn State, Rutgers and Boston College initially pursued Gargiulo. He fielded scholarship offers from UConn, Villanova and Towson (Md.) University. He even considered attending Sacred Heart as a two-sport athlete, including a defenseman in lacrosse. Gargiulo took up the sport in the fifth grade and proved good enough to win a title with the U.S. National U-15 squad.
Every one of those schools envisioned Garguilo as a defensive end/linebacker, where he had been a force for three years at Colts Neck. The only school that wanted Gargiulo as an offensive back was Navy.
It made sense. The Mids have had an affinity for rugged, downhill runners at fullback. Gargiulo proved a potential prize as a high school tailback at 225 pounds, with enough big-play capability to rack up nearly 3,500 yards rushing yards over his last two seasons under former Colts Neck coach Greg LaCava.
As a senior, Gargiulo ranked fifth in football-fertile New Jersey with 1,666 rushing yards, fourth with 27 touchdowns and second with 139 tackles.
Sal Gargiulo says his son clearly was moved by Navy's interest in him at running back. He adds that the recruiting process also exposed Anthony to some unsavory moments.
"Anthony didn't connect with the lifestyle at some places he visited," Sal Gargiulo recalls. "There was a lot of partying and drinking. On one visit when he was a high school junior, he was taken to a go-go bar. Then he spent a couple of days unofficially visiting Navy, shadowing Shawn White, going to classes and seeing what it was really like there. He called me and said, 'This place feels like home.'"
Anthony Gargiulo says his year at NAPS made for a tough adjustment – especially the military side of things. Then, following two years in Annapolis, during which he had barely established a place in Navy's football plans, Gargiulo seriously weighed leaving the academy.
After using up nearly all of his decision time in the summer of 2017, Gargiulo signed his commitment to graduate and serve at least five years. In May, he will gain a quantitative economics degree and be commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and report eventually to The Basic School in Quantico, Va.
"I didn't have another realistic option, so I decided to stay," he says.
Gargiulo says he consulted at length with family and other people close to him. One of those was LaCava, who texted Anthony's father to gain permission to chat with his son about such a huge decision.
"I spent all night thinking about what I would tell Anthony the next day," LaCava recalls. "I told him that anything worthwhile is hard, and he had worked so hard to get this far, that he'd never quit at anything before and he should stop thinking about now and think about setting himself up for a great career and a great life."
"I knew he'd be strong enough to stick it out, just like he'd be strong enough after that difficult situation [getting benched] this season. Anthony was always a strong and unassuming young man who never backed down in any competition. He's a man of few words who always does the right thing."
