Other academies envy AFA/ Prep school proximity helps with

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 24, 2003 by DAN WOLKEN

A map helps show the big difference between the Air Force Academy prep school and those at Army and Navy.

Air Force's prep school is 4 miles from the cadet area but still on academy grounds. The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., is nearly 400 miles from its prep school in Newport, R.I.

The Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., is almost 100 miles from the Army prep school in Fort Monmouth, N.J.

For Air Force teams, proximity aids the development of athletes, especially football players. Air Force also funnels more players into its prep school than do the other academies.

"Our coach's philosophy isn't to use the prep school as much as the other service academies," Army prep school athletic director Bob Mueller said of Army head coach Todd Berry. "I kind of wish he would."

Navy prep school football coach Clayton Kendrick-Holmes said his school's primary mission is to help enlisted people become officers.

"It's not sports," he said. "If it was, they'd sure be funding us a lot more than they are."

In each of the past five years, Air Force brought an average of about 90 recruited athletes to its prep school.

During that time, Army averaged about 62 recruited athletes; Navy averaged 82.

In the past four years, Navy prep expanded enrollment among nonathletes, dropping the number of athletes below 30 percent. The figures come from documents provided by each school.

Air Force is the only school among the three where prep players can use the varsity weight room during the offseason because it's next door at the academy.

"I wish we could do that," Kendrick-Holmes said.

He described the relationship between the Navy varsity coaching staff and his staff as "they know who we are."

Army's Mueller said the Air Force prep school and Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry's success and winning tradition combine to help the Falcons dominate Army and Navy.

Mueller said in certain years Army has had similar numbers of prep graduates on its varsity as Air Force - including 2003 - but still lost to Air Force.

He said most kids don't know much about the military academies during recruiting.

"It's not really that they choose Air Force because they want to fly," Mueller said.

"A significant number of them choose Air Force because Air Force has a better football program. We envy them. They're doing it right and just doing it better."

BLACK AND WHITE MAP: U.S. Air Force Academy Map