Riley Riethman: A Perfectionist in Everything He Does
By Gary Lambrecht
 
Riley Riethman, whose sharp, scientific mind has served him well throughout his four years as a high-achieving student-athlete at the Naval Academy, recalls how he wrestled with self-doubt, after unexpectedly changing positions as a new member of the Navy football team.
 
As an accomplished placekicker at Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth, Texas, where he was a four-sport athlete who lettered four times as a specialist on the football team, Riethman originally was recruited by Navy as a place kicker. But the established presence of Bijan Nichols, then a junior and becoming one of the better kickers ever at Navy, upended those assumptions in the summer of 2021.
 
Instead, Riethman learned he had a new job. With the Mids thin at the punter position, then-coach Ken Niumatalolo decided to include Riethman in a preseason punting competition.
 
"I was a guy who had not punted much. I wondered if I even deserved a chance to do it," says Riethman, an aerospace engineering major who had improved significantly as a punter by his high school senior year, when he was named First-Team All-State as a kicker and punter.
 
But Riethman had spent his high school years concentrating heavily on his continued improvement as a scoring specialist. As a senior at Nolan, he converted two-thirds of his field-goal attempts. In Nolan's loss in the state title game, Riethman's three, successful onside kicks – he recovered his own kick on the third effort – gave the Vikings a chance at a miraculous victory.
 
"I decided I would make the most of the opportunity, just be thankful that I am still playing the game, whatever my role is," Riethman adds. "I'm still trying to keep an underdog mindset. I don't want to forget those roots where I came from as a plebe, when I was kind of thrown into the job."
 
It did not take long for Riethman – who has evolved into arguably the best punter in school history – to regain his confidence three years ago.  
 
Back then, In the season's second game against visiting Air Force on Sept. 11, 2021, Riethman outshined fellow freshman Kellen Grave de Peralta in a game-day audition battle. Riethman averaged 40.8 yards on four punts, including his longest of 49 yards.
 
He has never relinquished his grip on the position.
 
"One of the amazing things about Riley is his ability to adapt to new things quickly," Grave de Peralta says, referring to his closest friend. "As a competitor, I admired how quickly he became passionate about [punting], took off with it and has done such great things with it."
 
"[Riethman] is big on efficiency and minute details. He will spend hours trying to correct something he is doing wrong," Grave de Peralta adds. "That's not just with football. That's with anything he has going on. He usually is doing anything but chilling out. He loves to make great use of his time."
 
Riethman, who holds the Navy punting record for career average (43.7) and single-season average (44.8 in 2023) and ranks second, third and fifth in Navy history for single-game average, is unquestionably a busy young man with many competing interests. They range from sports pursuits to his passionate approach to academics, evidenced by the 3.91 grade point average he brought into the fall.
 
Riethman's down time includes working at his golf game. Riethman says he is barely shy of scratch golfer status and figures his game will suffer temporarily, since there is no time to play a round or even to practice much during football season.
 
Listed at 5-feet-10, 191 pounds, Riethman attacks weights and conditioning work year-round. He has been known to whip position players regularly in running drills.
 
This time of the year and in the offseason, Riethman also puts in extra work sharpening the Australian-style of roll punting, a technique that has become increasingly popular at the high school and college levels and has found a place in the Mids' punting schemes.
 
It involves the punter rolling to one side after receiving the snap and delaying the punt to help the coverage release its blockers sooner and hustle downfield faster to cover the kick. By kicking across his body, Riethman can launch a punt that is hard for the returner to reach. The desired kick is more end-over-end, instead of a traditional spiral that turns over.
 
"I've grown to like it," says Riethman, who adds that Navy special teams coach Ricky Brown thinks it has become his best punt.
 
"I still struggle to accept that [assessment]," Riethman says. "If you hit it well, it goes further and higher. But my miss-hits are more common. The one advantage is you can gain more momentum on the punt, since you are running into it. It's harder to be consistent with that sort of punt, especially when you are just starting out with it."
 
"[Riethman] is probably his own worst critic, which is always great. He is never satisfied," says Brown, who last year coached the 23^rd nationally ranked punt return defense (4.59 yards). The Mids' net punting average of 40.74 yards ranked 28^th in the country.
 
"Riley's distance, his good hang time, and having gunners as good as Eli Heidenreich and Rayuan Lane – the best gunner in the country, I think – makes our punt team really good," Brown adds. "In terms of work ethic, making good adjustments and taking coaching, Riley is among the top tier of guys I've been around."
 
Then there is the extracurricular activity Riethman works into his schedule that relates to his major.
 
It's not unusual to find Riethman, for example, somewhere flying a drone he has designed and built. As a senior in high school, he was dating a young lady whom he asked to accompany him to the prom. He delivered the invitation via drone. Olivia said yes. The two are still a couple after five years.
 
Since he was a youngster, Riethman has been fascinated by what makes things run and fly. He was enchanted by the job his grandfather, Doyle Haywood, had.
 
"I built rockets and planes as a kid. I never got them to fly, but I was fascinated by it, and still am," Riethman recalls. "My brother, Drew and I had the same interest in it."
 
Haywood, now retired, was an electrical engineer who started and co-owned a company that produced products such as battery-operated signal level meters that cable TV installers used to measure signal strength in homes. His company also supplied similar equipment to NASA in the 1970s. He knew technicians and engineers associated with the Apollo program.
 
"Riley was always a curious boy. I felt pretty certain he would eventually go into some technical field. From an early age, he liked to buy kits you had to put together," recalls Haywood, who built his own single-engine airplane.
 
"He wanted to know how an automobile engine worked. Once he started to get the concept of how a crankshaft converted from an up-and-down motion to a rotary motion, he felt like he was ruling the world," Haywood adds. "Riley was building and testing rockets in the third and fourth grade. He wanted to design the airplane by himself. There were a lot of crashes, but a lot of success."
 
"[Riethman] was the quintessential example of the guy you would want dating your daughter. What an amazing teammate, student, and leader," says David Beaudin, Riethman's high school football coach.
 
As a senior, Riethman lettered in four sports and was honored as the school's Male Athlete of the Year.
 
He ran the 400 while earning his only letter in track and field. He got his second of two letters as a self-taught member of the varsity golf team and helped the Vikings win a district title, before finishing as the state runner-up. He finished his fourth varsity soccer season as a defender by being named Second-Team All-State.
 
Drew Riethman, who was a kicker at Texas A&M from 2017-20, learned the finer points of the craft under the tutelage of ex-NFL placekicker Scott Blanton – often with his younger brother there, kicking on the side. Blanton also worked with Riley during his high school years.
 
"Riley didn't realize we were grooming him to become a kicker back then," Drew Riethman says. "He was pretty polished as a kicker by the time he got to high school. His form was good. If he hit a bad kick, he knew what he had done wrong and how to correct it."
 
Brian Newberry, Navy's head coach, marvels at Riethman's development as a punter and the impact he had on the Mids' 5-7 season in 2023.
 
As a First-Team, All-AAC selection, Riethman was extremely busy last year, primarily due to the struggles of the Navy offense. His 80 punts were the second most in the country. He punted at least 10 times in three games and was a factor in the Mids' three shutout wins. Riethman also took over last year as the holder on the PAT and field goal units.
 
"[Riethman's] ability to keep us out of bad situations last year really helped our defense. His ability to place the ball inside the 10 with such good touch has been big," Newberry says. "It's good to have a real athlete back there. He's got the mental toughness of a golfer. He's as reliable and trustworthy as anybody we've got on our team."
 
"Riley is such a logical decision maker. He is also an insane chess player. I might have beaten him once," says senior fullback Daba Fofana, who bonded with Riethman after they sat next to each other in a freshman chemistry class. "As a punter, he's got such great control of himself when the pressure is high."
 
Perhaps Riethman's crowning achievement as a senior – besides hopefully helping the 5-0 Mids win the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy and go to a bowl game for the first time since 2019 – is being named a semifinalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy, also known as the Academic Heisman, by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
 
The Campbell Trophy recognizes an individual as the best football scholar-athlete in the nation for his combined academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership.
 
Besides his classroom achievements, Riethman has averaged 43.4 yards on only 19 punts in 2024, thanks to a rejuvenated offense averaging 43.6 points. He has pinned opponents inside their 20 eight times, while drawing five fair catches. He has only two touchbacks this year.
 
Riethman also took part in summer training that took seven Midshipmen to Nepal to immerse themselves in that nation's culture. As the Logistics Officer, Riethman took care of travel planning for a 7,300 mile journey and helped organize the itinerary for a three-week trekking adventure and interactions with people from the U.S. Ambassador to Nepal to working with orphans in Kathmandu.
 
Riethman led his peers through challenging hikes with over 3,000 feet of elevation gain per day, during monsoon season, often covered in leeches.
 
Currently, Riethman is working on his capstone project by building a drone capable of withstanding arctic temperatures that has infrared sensors to detect polar bears and their dens. The project seeks to identify and protect the dens from road building construction and to avoid the expensive cost of having to divert roads around the bear dens.
 
"We're still in the design phase of building a prototype model drone, trying to get it to take off and land. Very interesting problem," says Riethman, who hopes to be commissioned a Navy pilot. "I'd like to combine my engineering skills with hopefully my aviation and piloting skills from the cockpit."
 
Riethman also intends to savor every day he has left with his football teammates.
 
"Now that I'm the veteran, the four-year starter, it would be easy to get complacent," he says. "But I try to keep that chip on my shoulder. What an opportunity, to play Navy football for the fourth year."