On the Republican line in Coos Bay, Oregon, Beverly, good morning.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good.
Good.
I have a question and a comment.
Why isn't the Coast Guard looking out over the ocean to see where those drones are going?
And also, I think the government knows what these drones are, otherwise they'd have fighter jets up there chasing them away like they do with everything else.
So, what about that?
I don't know why the Coast Guard doesn't know if they're flying back over the ocean.
As some people have said, they come out of the sea and then they go back to the ocean.
I don't know why.
I'm just as frustrated as you.
We should know why.
Again, we need to know who's flying them.
We need to know where they came from.
You can watch this program in its entirety at our website, C -SPAN .org.
We're going to leave it here to take you to a discussion with former Army and Navy football players on sportsmanship and democracy.
You're watching live coverage on C -SPAN.
We have recently launched the Center on Civility and Democracy as a nonpartisan effort to help move the country past our divisions and restore the values of civility that are so essential to the health of our democracy.
One way we do this is to highlight ways that we as Americans find common ground with our fellow citizens despite the political differences we may have with them.
As we see too often, especially in politics, we come to consider our opponents to be our enemies.
That's why sports, especially the Army -Navy game, sets an excellent example for all of us.
Athletes from our service academies know the differences between an opponent working to outscore you on the football field and an enemy out to kill you on the battlefield.
It's an important distinction that we can all better apply in our daily lives as we engage with those who disagree with us.
Please join me in thanking them.
Today is the kickoff of this new program and what could be a better kickoff than America's greatest sports rivalry, the Army -Navy game.
Today we're delighted to partner with the Rose Bowl Institute, a great group that's doing important work promoting sportsmanship and leadership.
And special thanks to Rose Bowl Institute President James Washington for your support and for your leadership.
We're delighted that James is with us today and I'll tell you he's very easy to recognize.
He's the only person I know who has a Rose Bowl championship ring and two Super Bowl championship rings.
Well, our two special guests today have led on the football field in service to their academy and on the battlefield in service to their country.
Carlton Jones is a distinguished Army officer.
He served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and was four years starting running back with West Point's Army Black Knights.
Clint Bruce, also a veteran of the Army -Navy game, is a former Navy SEAL, decorated NFL and Navy midshipman athlete, and a seasoned entrepreneur.
In these two gentlemen, we have athletes who now know how to do their best on the game field as well as on the battlefield.
And they know the difference between the two.
To moderate this conversation today, we're delighted...
Thank you, Fred.
I'm honored to be here today.
And as with the Army -Navy game every year, not only honored but humbled to be with guys like this and with the young guys that are going to play about 48 hours from now, 47 hours from now.
That's when my real job begins.
I've got a production meeting as soon as we get out of here, and I was telling these guys that our crew on a normal basis...
Doing the Big Ten Game of the Week is probably 85 people, something like that.
With CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network and the pregame show and the march -ons and all of that, we probably have 150 people, so we have a lot of meetings and they start tonight.
But anyway, honored to be here and Fred already told you about these guys and what they did in their football careers.
This guy was a middle linebacker.
We'll talk about that after.
Keep being funny.
Is that one of those?
The Army quarterback.
Here's what I ask the young guys when we interview them, be it in person or on Zooms.
So, when you guys chose Navy and Army, did Army choose you or did you choose Army?
And same question to you, just from where you came from and the football aspect.
Well, for me, Army chose me.
Because being from a small town in North Carolina, it wasn't on my radar initially, but the coaching staff, head coach at the time, Todd Berry, came down, sat in my living room talking to my parents and kind of highlighted what the opportunity of going to West Point would have been, just not on the football field,
but off the field as an Army officer, as a graduate, would have provided.
Once I got one on my visit and saw the team, saw the camaraderie and what they, as a team, what they did, I was sold.
I think I committed on that visit that day.
It must have been summertime.
No, it was actually in the middle of a snowstorm.
It was in the middle of a snowstorm.
I questioned that decision now.
North North Carolina, if you took a visit to West Point and found the weather to be favorable for you.
How about you, Clint?
A little bit of both.
One of the questions I get asked often is when did I first want to become a Navy SEAL?
I never really could remember the answer to that.
I just don't remember not wanting to be one.
And then during COVID, you know, I don't think there's a lot of redemptive qualities to COVID.
We learn a lot about ourselves.
But I got to spend a tremendous amount of time with my kids, my daughters.
I have three daughters, because why not?
Why wouldn't I?
And my oldest goes, Dad, you want to watch Magnum P .I.?
I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
They turn on the new one.
I'm like, stop.
We're not watching.
So we watched the original Magnum P .I., and there's an episode in the second season, and some of y 'all watch Magnum P .I. already know where I'm going in this, where they kind of reveal that the character Magnum, Thomas Magnum, played football at the Naval Academy, and he was a Navy SEAL.
And I remember having this hyper -lucid memory of being a little chubby little fifth grader in Little Rock, Arkansas, watching Magnum P .I. on Thursday nights at 8 p .m. with my dad, and just turning and looking at him going, hey, I don't play football at the Naval Academy, be a Navy SEAL.
And my dad was like, alright.
So you were more into Tom Selleck?
No, no, not Tom Selleck.
But it's an amazing show when you really go back and look at it.
You look at just the diversity, TC Magnum, and the relationship they had and some of the topics they addressed.
But when I was, towards the end of my senior season, my junior season, my father got sick and eventually passed away.
And so for me as the oldest son, You know, I had opportunities to play at a lot of different schools.
I was very fortunate in a big program in Texas.
I had great coaches that advocated for you and incredible teammates.
You know, I had to make a 40 -year decision and not a four -year one.
And the service academies and the opportunity to become a Navy SEAL.
You know, the coaches said, yeah, you just tell them you want to be a Navy SEAL.
And that's not true.
That's not how that one works, right?
I've been looking for him for a long time.
And it's just a little bit harder.
But, yeah, so it was a little bit of both.
I reached out to Annapolis, and Annapolis, they had me on their board.
And, you know, it saved me in a lot of ways.
Not many guys make a decision to say, okay, I could play in the NFL or I'll go be a Navy SEAL.
I mean, like, you know, Pat Tillman did that with the Cardinals, you know, and ended up losing his life 20 years ago right now, I think.
How'd you make that decision?
Well, I played the same position as Ray Lewis at Baltimore, which...
You know, there was a point in practice where I was like, it might be easier to become a Navy SEAL than that.
And it turns out it was.
But, you know, I wanted to serve.
There was no part of me that didn't want to serve.
And this was pre -9 -11.
This was 1997.
And I remember there was a couple moments, you know, Marvin Lewis was the coordinator and Ozzie's incredible and Phil Savage is the GM.
You know, I got to go where it hurts and I got to go where it's hard.
And I remember there was a moment in the NFL where I was like, listen, everything I'm going to learn about myself is something I already know.
It's going to be a deeper dive.
And I got to go where I don't know.
I'm not going where I need God less.
I'm not going where I'm not going to have to learn myself.
And I had no idea if I could become a member of the SEAL team.
So for me, it was pretty easy.
It was pretty easy to go.
You got to go where you don't know because that's where you're going to need your brothers.
That's where you're going to need.
Was it as tough as you thought it was going to be?
And I wasn't.
I was not a triathlete.
But anybody watching right now, if you're a big guy and you've got to make it through an attrition process, I'll tell you the secret to running.
Here's the secret to running if you're a big guy.
Lean forward until you're about to fall over, then don't.
For however far you gotta go.
It's like, you don't look cool, but you make the time.
It's a controlled fall, right?
Don't you miss football?
I mean, you're a lieutenant colonel now, correct?
Right, correct.
So you're still in the business at the Pentagon.
At the Pentagon, still active, still going, but do I miss it?
Yeah, until I look on Sundays, I see a big hit, or I see a running back getting crushed by a D -tackle.
I'm like, no, maybe not.
Maybe not, not as much.
I don't miss it as much now.
The best part, I would think, because this is how I feel in my job, is I like being part of a team.
Teamwork is the coolest thing in the world.
When I decide I'm not going to do this anymore, I will miss the juice of my team.
That's what it's all about, both military and...
Yeah, the locker room.
Missed practice more than games.
Really?
Missed practice more than games, because at practice, you're talking to your teammates, you're involved, you have the interaction, you have the coaches.
I miss the practices, because, you know, competitive juices between one another, you're pushing each other, and you have the games going on.
It's games inside of just practice.
You know, I'm against this middle linebacker.
Oh, he got me last play?
Okay.
I got something for you next time.
I know exactly what you're going to do.
It's a piece of our game every day against our brothers and our own service caddies, by the way.
How did that carry over to what you do now, just the football aspect of it, the teamwork part, I guess?
Oh, it's...
It translates directly to what we're doing.
I'm on part of a team.
I was a platoon leader.
I'm in charge of men, have kids, families.
So I'm in charge of them.
I have to lead them just like I lead my teammates on a field every Saturday.
So you take that and you go with the same discipline, the same responsibility that you take with that going onto a field every day.
You take that into your next job.
You know exactly what you're going to do.
Everybody has their own job to complete an overall mission.
On Saturdays, it's to beat Navy.
Every Saturday is to beat Navy.
Especially Saturday.
But for us, it's like everybody has a job to complete a mission.
Whether it's in Iraq, Afghanistan, wherever the mission is, that's what we're doing.
And you've got to trust the other dudes you're working with to do their job.
Otherwise, it could be a catastrophe for you guys, Navy SEALs.
I think for me, I tend to One of the questions I get asked a lot, especially by young men, is, hey, what's your favorite gun?
It's a natural question given my background.
But I always go, are you asking me what my favorite gun is or what my favorite weapon is?
And sometimes there'll be a little bit of a ripple in the audience like just happened here.
And people don't totally know there's a difference, and I always grab these young men and go, listen, a gun is a tool.
A weapon is what I use to win.
So my favorite weapon is a map.
Yeah.
I think?
The vast majority of our, the best of us that was built on the ball field explored seamlessly any of the other maps that we're on.
So, kind of piggyback on what he was just saying, like the weapon versus the gun, like he says a map.
I think the greatest weapon we have, a radio.
So if I have a radio, I can communicate to anybody, anywhere within the battlefield.
So the communication between a quarterback and his O -line, a middle linebacker and his entire defense.
For us in the Army, like, you got a radio, if we can't do it, if we're stuck somewhere, we don't do it, I can communicate to all of my, whoever's, I can reach, I can reach out to somebody, I can call to somebody else, and they're coming to help me.
So that's why the radio's so important.
So you guys spent 364 days a year Getting ready to beat each other.
And in between, you played Air Force, so the goal is...
I mean, that's the whole goal is the Commander -in -Chief Trophy.
So it's the CIC, that's the goal.
And anything...
Well, there is nothing above that, I don't think.
Because...
And I'll get back to my question in a minute, but I talked to Jeff Munkin yesterday.
So we said, you know, Coach, awesome year.
11 -1.
Won the conference championship.
And now getting ready for Navy.
And congratulations.
And he said, yeah, it's been a good year.
But if we don't win on Saturday, it's not going to be a great year.
So, I mean, that's the mentality.
But you spend all that time year -round preparing to play in those CIC games, and then when your career is over, football -wise at least, now you're obviously on the same team.
There's three teams.
Did you have any interaction where, okay, I'm going to be with some Navy guys and I'm going to be with some Army guys and I'm going to be with some Air Force guys?
Yeah, in the Special Operations community, we operate in a joint environment.
And so a lot of the great Army football players, you know, Pat Work and, you know, just one of the ones off the top of my head.
And, you know, you run into those guys in the Special Operations community all the time.
And there's a lot that you know about them.
And you work for them.
You work for guys that you competed against.
And it was a real privilege because you're always trying to learn about your leaders and trying to learn about your team.
And when you walk into someone who played at Army or even Air Force, there's some things you already know about them.
Same thing, Carl.
That's just the fear.
Insecure is the son of a gun.
I always cross lines with somebody working with Air Force.
They're probably my least favorite.
Unless you're playing golf.
If you're playing golf, you want those guys.
Oh, absolutely.
They have the best courses.
Yeah, best handicaps.
Best O -clubs.
You know, rivalries are rivalries.
I've done every rivalry in the NFL.
Duke, North Carolina basketball.
Celtics, Lakers, and NBA.
I don't broadcast baseball, but I assume people would say Yankees, Red Sox, whatever.
This is it, right?
I mean, this game?
Best rivalry ever?
I think this game stands apart.
I was interviewed by someone, I can't remember, 10, 12 years ago.
And they asked me about rivalries, right?
And it was a little bit of a loaded question because it was out of respect they won an Army -Navy game, but this is closer to Red River rivalry and all this other stuff.
And I listened to them.
I said, hey, what do you think?
And they list all these great rivalries.
I'm like, those are wonderful.
I love those rivalries.
But Army -Navy stands apart.
And they go, what do you mean?
I said, well, you show me a game where everyone playing is willing to die for everybody watching, and I'll tell you that we have company.
And that's the truth of it.
The truth of it is everybody on that field has sworn a oath to defend everyone watching that.
And I think in the annals of a rivalry, this is a unique one, and it stands apart.
It's pure, it's beautiful, it's violent.
It's all these other things, but it is in many ways the best of us as a nation.
And I marvel at guys like Carlton.
I joined the Naval Academy right after Desert Storm, and it was a successful war fought by great leaders.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
So much.
There's no question what they're going to do once they graduate.
And I marvel at the fact that our nation still produces men and women willing to do the harder thing from the time they're 18 to the time they're 26, 27, 30.
That's why I have great hope in this nation.
A little bit like Reagan, I'm an optimist.
But there's data that drives my optimism.
And the data that drives my optimism is the number of men and women still applying for service academies, knowing it's going to be the harder thing.
I think the last thing I checked, it was 20 ,000 applicants for 1 ,200 positions at West Point.
That's 20 ,000 per service cabin.
And so we have an amazing generation, and it's been that way since 9 -11, so I'm so encouraged and so grateful.
I don't want to interrupt you.
Did you know it when you got there?
Or did you know it before you got there?
Or is it getting ingrained as soon as you get there?
You can't really fully understand it until you're in it.
Until you understand it completely.
Because everything that Clint said, I didn't know because the academies are hard.
Every day is hard.
Being an athlete is harder.
It's even harder because you have everything expected to you academically, militarily.
It's hard to be an athlete at a Division I level to perform at such a high level.
It's hard on a daily basis.
And so I could probably say the same thing happened to you.
Freshman, sophomore year, it's tough.
You go through these periods and low times where you just want to quit.
Yes, it's brotherhood.
And that's life.
And the faster you learn it, the better you are.
And I've always told my daughters, hard now, easy later.
Easy now, hard later.
That's only two ways of it.
And so we front load that hard into our lives and I would say it blesses us and those depending on us for sure.
I got asked a question like, hey, what did you learn going through SEAL training?
And my answer is always a little bit, comes out of left field, I go, nothing.
They go, what do you mean?
I said, I learned how to be a SEAL, but I didn't learn anything.
I said, what I learned was who was telling me the truth my whole life.
Because when you're doing something like that, you don't have time to learn.
You only have time to remember.
And so when you're going through SEAL training, I had a chance to remember who told me and if what they told me worked.
And so it's a proving ground.
And those lessons we learned from those battles, you know, I played in all four like you did.
And they've exported into every other aspect of our life.
But I don't know that you can...
This is, as Fred said, this is my seventh.
Game.
And I was telling you this the other day, and I'll just tell the story quickly.
A lot of what we do is not just the game, and there's a lot of homework involved, obviously, in all of that.
But during the course of the week, wherever we're doing a game, Big Ten or if it's Army -Navy or if it's whatever, you know, part of our responsibility is dealing with the other media.
There.
There.
I don't know.
I haven't done it yet, you know?
And so a lot of you might know that I replaced Vern Lundquist when Vern retired.
So Vern had done it many times.
So I called Vern.
I said, Vern, I got a problem.
He said, what's up?
I said, all these newspaper and radio outlets are calling me and saying, what's it mean for you to do the Army -Navy game?
And I said, I don't know what to tell them.
And he said, as soon as you get there, brother, you'll understand.
And you do one of those games, and I'm getting...
I'm getting this right now.
I'm thinking about two days from now.
Because the emotion of the moment, the emotion of the game, it's America's game, which I think is the greatest title ever.
You can have America's team all you want.
This is America's game, you know.
And from the Marchons...
You know, I'm sitting there taking pictures like a little kid or movies, and I send them to my daughter, and I go, Dad, you've showed me six march -ons.
I know, but this is this year, you know what I mean?
And so I'm getting tingly just thinking about the game, but when you work so hard and you get to it, the sportsmanship, we're here about sportsmanship, and when you get to the game and win or lose...
The greatest moment in sports, and I don't think you guys, and I'm not trying to delve in, but I don't think you guys were that successful, so you didn't get to sing second, correct?
You can ask Al Cato.
Al Cato will tell you.
There you go.
You sing after that?
God bless America.
Al Qaeda would disagree.
Okay.
Well, just talk about the football thing because it's a big deal, man.
No, I mean, I lost all four in a row by a total of seven points in the combined last minute and a half of all the four games, and two of them are my fault, but I'm over it.
I'm fine.
I'm going to kick a puppy on the way out.
I'm going to bring that up.
But, you know, I remember after my senior season just not having anything left.
It wasn't my best game, and I was getting lifted up off the field, and I assumed it was going to be my teammates, guys I served with, and it was some of Army's offensive line.
Really?
And it was just this commitment we made to each other, not knowing we would go to war together.
But it was a commitment we made to each other about what we knew about each other and how we were willing to go to war with each other based on what we'd learned about each other the last four years.
And it's one of the more special moments in my entire athletic career to have had those moments and to still stay in touch.
Mitch Sizelove and I played high school football together.
He played at West Point.
Some of my great friends and teammates are from Army West Point.
So the beginning of the game I have a hard time because we have We're good to go.
I think?
Now we're going to go sing.
And I get all choked up again.
And so I just think that's one of the coolest things in sports I've ever seen.
All the emotions, whether you sing second, sing first, all the emotions going through your body.
If you won, you're happy, you're elated that you're singing second.
But if you're singing second like we did, I didn't win one either.
So it's anger, it's frustration, it's all those things, those emotions are going through your mind as you're sitting here singing first.
Especially your last one.
Your last one, the magnitude, the weight of it, the appreciation for what you've been a part of, and the heartbreak that you're never going to get to do it again, and the hope that the ones that come behind you play it the way you try to play it.
It all hits you.
I tell you, there's one person that does not like the Army -Navy game, and it's my bride.
Because her birthday is on the same day as the Army -Navy game.
And for the two years that we were dating, she's my ring dance date, we've been married for almost 27 years, been together for 30.
She's just like, Army -Navy ruined two of my birthdays.
Because I'm not over it.
I'm not one of these, like, I'll send you a cake, leave me alone.
My wife's birthday's tomorrow, and I've missed every birthday for as long as I can remember.
Let's keep our wives apart.
Let's keep them separated.
But, yeah, you know, the singing, and I think that should be...
I have a friend that...
I was just with watching NFL football at the local dive that we do on Sundays.
We got together and he said, you know, I think there should be a rule.
He loves Army -Navy games.
I think there should be a rule.
Every game, they should have to do that.
Not just Army -Navy, but every college football game.
Win, lose, you should go watch them sing their alma mater, whatever, stand there, you know, crying through your eye black if you lost and big smiles if you won.
And he said, and if they don't do that, take away their NIL money.
I was like, that's not a bad idea.
Or beat them.
The woodshed cures a lot of ills, man.
But you think about, what, three weeks ago, let's say.
Michigan, Ohio State, Arizona, Arizona State, Florida, Florida State, North Carolina, North Carolina State.
You know, they all go and they...
Trying to plant the flag and all of that.
And I realize there's a lot of 18 to 22 year old testosterone flying around at a football game and you don't want people doing something on your logo.
But, I mean, that compared to what you guys do at the end of your games, it couldn't be.
Farther apart.
And it should be the way you guys do it.
I think the thing we know is some of those rivalries, that's your ultimate enemy adversary.
For he and I, we're adversaries, but we're not enemies.
Because enemies, that outside agent, that enemy of the nation that we're not against.
We have this looming third -party actor that hates both of us.
And it's easy to rally you.
There was a legislator yesterday in Ohio that produced a bill that, I don't know, and he...
I wanted to call it the OHIO Sportsmanship Act.
And if anybody tries to plant a flag on the horseshoe in Columbus, it's illegal and it's against the law.
And I was like, okay, there's a politician who's trying to make a name for himself.
But it's not a bad idea.
But, you know, just the fact that sportsmanship's what we're here about and it's the biggest thing.
And it's, the society should learn.
A lesson.
I'm not a guy that can talk politics.
You talk about sportsmanship.
This recent presidential election, is that the biggest lack of sportsmanship you've ever seen leading up to something?
We just quieted the crowd.
Here's what I will tell you.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Love will give you a gear that hate won't.
There you go.
Love will give you a gear that hate won't.
And for me, I've never hated anybody I played against more than I love the guys I played next to.
I think?
I always say that tribes row,
teams flow.
And one of the things that tribes have is they have this kind of, this thread of love between them.
Like, we know we're going to go to war.
When we say, hey, Play like your life depends on it.
That's not a metaphor for us.
The things we're doing, our life might depend on it.
That precision.
Carlton hitting the right hole.
Carlton taking his juke step and then coming this way.
Me taking the read step.
Those commitments to precision, it's a way to show how much you love the guy next to you.
How hard you want to play and the precision with which you're willing to deploy your skill.
I think you don't make it to our institutions if you don't have that.
That's bigger than hate.
What you were talking about, what makes this rivalry so special?
What's special is these two institutions, from the moment you step on campus, you're not only a football player, but both sides, you're building leaders of character that are going to go on and lead nations, fights, wars, and so you get that training, that discipline, that leadership,
that ethics from the moment you step on either campus.
I can say that for both.
So it's not just, you're not just there to be a football player, you're there to develop as a man, as a leader, and a leader of men.
So you learn that from the day you step on campus and so you continue that only when you're down academically and you just continue to get that when you're on the football field.
That's why they have no excuse to, okay, when you're on a football field, do something different that you wouldn't do anywhere else.
So that continues on while you're on a football field.
I love what he just said.
It extends into our dorms.
I love my classmates because that's the only way I made it through calculus.
I was like, my classmates are like, you're dumb, but we love you.
And we're going to help you spell this right.
I'm like, this math has letters.
What is that?
So the love kind of goes through the whole thing.
I love my classmates, my company mates.
And for me, Saturday in the fall was an opportunity to show my roommates how much I love them by the way I played.
So for me, football was a proving ground.
It was an opportunity to prove someone right or prove someone wrong every snap and show people that I loved them, that I meant what I said by how hard I played and the commitment to craft.
In the day and age now of the portal and all of that, there's not portal in Army, Navy, Air Force, whatever.
You can portal in, but you're starting over.
It's going to suck.
Well, Ray and Wayne, safety, all -conference safety for Navy, we talked to him yesterday.
And I said, hey, you probably had a chance if you wanted to leave, go someplace else.
You've got NFL aspirations and all that.
And he said, well, sir.
He goes, you know, I looked at it.
I came in with 50 brothers, and I'm going to graduate with 50 brothers.
Yeah, it's remarkable.
Is that cool?
It's remarkable.
It doesn't surprise me, knowing him since he got there a little bit, and knowing the quality of caliber.
I think sometimes guys go to the NFL looking for what we had at the service caddies.
My little brother played Oklahoma State, and I would sit in the locker rooms in the league when I was in there for the brief time I was in there, and none of them, very few of them would talk about their teams and their schools the way that we did.
And that's no disrespect.
That's not marginalizing it.
But there was always an element, I think, of...
God, I wish...
My brother says all the time, I wish I would have had the brotherhood that you had.
But you would have to go through what I went through to have it.
The only way you forge that level of camaraderie, brother, is time and suffering.
There's only two things to do it.
If you don't have time, what do you got left?
Suffering.
And then you figure out who wants to be there and who means what they say.
This whole thing, sportsmanship, integrity.
There's winning without being arrogant, I guess.
And there's not an art form to losing, but somebody's got to win, somebody's got to lose.
And I think society could learn a lesson there, too, a little bit.
Yeah, I've always taught my daughters, I said, you win, you lose, you get beat.
Losing is you beat yourself.
Getting beat is you just get beat, and winning's winning.
Don't lose.
Don't lose.
Getting beat, you just get beat.
Sometimes you just get beat.
Sometimes the other guy's better.
Sometimes the other gal can do it longer or kick it further.
I love the Olympics.
I love watching the women's rugby team do what they did.
Sometimes you just get beat, but don't lose.
You can control whether you lose or not.
Losing is you beat yourself.
If you lose and you learn, then you move that from the loss category to the getting beat category.
If you're not willing to get beat, don't play.
Don't show up.
That's why we show up on Saturdays to figure it out.
And it's not this factory for perfection, right?
And again, I'll go back to it.
Easy now, hard later, hard now, easy later.
Some of these kids that are going to the portal, man, I get it.
I'm not judging it.
But if you're looking for something easier, you're going to pay for that later in some way.
So do the harder thing.
Always do the harder thing.
Because you're going to learn more about yourself and life when you do it that way.
What do you think Aretha Franklin got it right?
Like R -E -S -P -C -T -L -E.
She got a lot right.
She has.
Really, isn't that what we're talking about almost?
Yeah, and you earn respect through suffering.
I mean, that's the only way to do it.
Gamesmanship and sportsmanship.
Two different things.
Gamesmanship, you can try to...
I've seen teams try to trick the rules that happened in Oregon this year.
I know there's some Michigan people in here because I met one of them.
He's right there.
Michigan tried to...
Steal signals.
Coach Belichick just told the North Carolina job today, so deflate gate or spy gate will eventually upend the ACC.
So that's, I guess, gamesmanship, but they're two different things, aren't they?
Sportsmanship and gamesmanship.
I think I only focus on sportsmanship.
There's no cheat in the battle space, right?
Gamesmanship, in some sense, is a shortcut.
And shortcuts never really are.
When you run out the long game on a shortcut, a lot of times you find out it wasn't as short.
It cost you something else.
It may have saved you time, but it cost you something else, right?
And I think sportsmanship is just...
If you compromise on the way there...
You have to hold the trophy with an element of compromise, too.
And I don't want to half -hold anything.
CIC trophy this weekend.
It's whoever wins, it's going to take it home.
It's going to stay home.
It's a special thing.
It's going to stay home?
It's going to stay home.
Well, you went through a tough time.
Yes.
You went through, I think, part of a 14 stretch.
We started that.
Let's not talk about that right now.
Well, I'm just thinking.
Let's not talk about that.
I'm regurgitating all the stuff that I thought about.
You know, I didn't.
I want Navy to win every game, but I think some of us loved it.
I love seeing Army do well.
I love seeing Army do well.
I want to beat them, but even that, I want it to be a close game.
I want people to go like, God, man, thank God those guys are going to step up for us later.
I think I would have been a better guy if we'd have won,
too.
But I know...
I know enduring that and overcoming that and not letting that be the definition of who I was as a player, who I am as a man, has made me better.
Because we're all going to have to recalibrate ourselves.
Same thing?
Kind of same thing.
Going back to the gamesmanship versus sportsmanship.
Gamesmanship, I look at it as a gimmick.
You're looking for a gimmick or something that eventually they're going to figure out.
And then you're going to have to start from scratch and do it all over again.
For the sportsmanship, you're doing everything right the same way every day.
Then you don't have to go back.
You're creating more work for yourself.
You're trying to find a gimmick or a shortcut to get something.
It's a shortcut.
Just do everything the right way.
The sportsmanship is doing everything the right way at the right time.
And just being better that day.
Doing everything the right way.
That's why we don't focus on the gimmicks, the tricks, anything like that.
You just do everything the right way, every day, doing the discipline, not beating yourself.
And everything works out.
You just got to be better on that day.
Dude, and it's also, if someone tries to beat you at gamesmanship and you beat them at sportsmanship, it crushes their soul, which is kind of satisfying.
You beat a man's soul, that's kind of what you're going for.
I'm sorry, I'll pull it back a little bit.
But, you know, when I was doing powerlifting, I never wanted to wear a bench press shirt because I wanted to beat you and you wore your shirt and I didn't.
And I want you to worry, wonder about that and worry about it for the next time we could.
I just, I think sportsmanship is doing it right.
When these two teams get together, this year, both offenses have expanded a little bit and thrown the ball a little bit more.
It's not hard to throw more.
More than two.
Four times.
We were talking to the offensive coordinators yesterday, and they said, well, we want to be risky, but we don't want to be reckless.
I said, please be risky, so we have something to talk about.
Mike Beatty, three yards.
Mike Beatty, four yards.
And then it's fourth down and two, and we're not punting.
We're going for it anyway.
That's the way it is.
All the points these two teams have scored this year, I almost guarantee you that it will be 17 to 13 or something.
And that might be high scoring.
Am I right?
That's a good point.
I mean, it's like you said, it's for every blade of grass.
First, don't hit me.
Second...
I thought we were...
We were.
You made that little chubby comment at the beginning.
Yeah.
I'm joking.
I could have said how many tackles you made over the four years.
I'm joking, but you didn't.
How many did you make?
A few.
That's the thing I love about this game.
The linebackers make like 20 tackles a year.
It's the best.
It's just like...
Remember, we played Cal Berkeley in the Aloha Bowl my senior year, and they were like, Clint, you're covering Tony Gonzalez.
I'm like, at what point in four years have I shown the ability to do this?
I think they ran it 16 times and I made 12 tackles.
We won 42 -38, which means they threw it.
I called Tony Gonzales, sir, by the end of the game.
I was like, nice catch, sir.
He's just a ridiculously great athlete and a high -character guy.
I refuse to speculate on that game.
It's just going to go the way it's going to go.
These men are going to learn about themselves and each other.
Those lessons are going to Right.
Yeah.
You know, what a jerk I was in my early 20s, and I appreciate what this place was, and now that I'm there, I'm just so grateful.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to line up against these guys for four years, and what I learned about myself, what I learned about goodness and rightness, and the way we ought to be as a people.
So I'm grateful for it.
Well, let me speculate.
We're going to win.
I want to speculate.
We're going to win.
I lost four years, but we need to win as much as possible.
We're going to win, but just great game.
I'm just going to open it up.
These guys, like I said, I'm honored to be up here with these dudes.
I'm going to open it up to questions.
I don't know where Meredith is, but she said, Brad, if it gets to the point where you want to ask questions, go ahead and ask questions.
I think these guys...
Gentlemen, thank you for showing up today.
Ellis Craig, former Marine Corps combat veteran.
So you talked about leadership.
If you could kind of describe, what's the one word you would put in front of leadership to describe your leadership style?
And tell me a story that's attached to that.
You can't say servant leadership.
Oh, dadgummit.
You can't tell me what to do.
But I think servant leadership is the right word.
Or sacrificial leadership, which is just kind of another version of it.
But, you know, just having that lived out in front of us, right?
And I'll revere the Marine Corps for this.
I think the Marine Corps is perhaps one of the most unique branches of the military in all the world.
Like, you ask a SEAL what his second birthday is, the Marine Corps does the best job of cultivating an identity.
And relevance to your fellow Marines is what drives how much you're respected, right?
So I think servant leadership is the right way to describe it.
And I'm just so blessed in that it's hard for me to come up with one instance of that.
I was around, you know, there's a legendary Marine named Doug Zimbeck, you know, the Lion of Fallujah.
And, you know, the story's about him leading from the front.
And you're not leading from the front from a vanity or a glory perspective.
You're leading...
I was working with a big college football team and someone asked me, like, How do you be a great team?
Be the first to the hurt.
If you can find a way to be the first to hurt and stay at the hurt the longest.
If you're in a team that's arguing about who gets to hurt the most and for the longest, you got good stuff there.
And I think I was around that all the time.
You get under that log when you're going through SEAL training and you try to rotate the burden for guys.
Like, hey, I gotta shake your arms out and stuff like that.
And you know you're in a good boat crew when...
When you're arguing on who's going to take a break, and it's not about who's going to take a break.
It's like, no, I got this.
You go.
You take a break.
You take a break.
But I think that's what the game teaches you.
The game teaches you that the mission matters most, and the mission is in you.
You both took my answer.
So I think the word I would use is present.
Present leadership.
So, yeah, I had time to think.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
See, there you go.
I had time to think.
So just present leadership.
So even a daily task is if you want your leader, you've got to be there first.
You've got to be the first one.
You've got to be working on time.
You've got to be there not 8 .30, 8 o 'clock.
If you ask someone for a task, you're asking them to do something physical.
Hey, you've got to be the first one to do it.
Show them how it's done.
So being a present leader and being visible so that your subordinates, your peers, everyone can see you that, hey, I'm not asking you to do something that I wouldn't do myself.
So being that present leader, I think that's what I would say.
Yeah, I mean, the senior enlisted, man, the senior enlisted, I wish more people appreciated the senior enlisted.
I mean, in all but the aviation community, enlisted is what our enemies rightly fear.
The courage, creativity, initiative, valor.
And if enlisted are the backbone of the senior enlisted are the spinal cord.
And, you know, they're amazing.
And I had this one senior enlisted, and the...
Am I okay?
Am I okay?
Am I okay?
And I tell people there's a difference between being here and being home.
And here's geography of homeless knowing why you're here.
And I think part of being present as a leader is asking someone how they're doing and making them tell you the truth.
And then telling them it's going to be okay no matter what the answer is, right?
And I have great coaches that did that.
Like I said, my coach is checking me out after I lost my father and lost a few of the really important men to me the first two years I was at the Naval Academy.
Clint, how are you?
I don't know where the mic went.
There it is.
Thank you both for your service.
Go Army, beat Navy.
I apologize.
That's good from the back of the room.
I'm joking.
I would expect nothing less.
I was across the line of scrimmage from you in 1993.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah, Wake Forest played at Navy.
Yeah, absolutely.
My question's about college football and where Navy and Army go.
Will Army and Navy football rise or fall as a result of NIL and the portal?
I think we'll rise.
I think NIL and the portal are going to run its course.
It's going to do what everything does.
Big flow and then it's going to normalize.
And I think what Army and Navy have the opportunity to promise young men is what NIL tries to promise young men.
And NIL is not the enemy.
I love that guys can monetize their talent sooner because some of these gentlemen can radically impact their families' lives by monetizing their skill.
But I think when you look at career after the service academies, we have every advantage.
You know, look at a CEO.
Ask a CEO, hey, do you want to hire a West Point grad or a Naval Academy grad or an Air Force Academy grad?
There's very few CEOs that don't want a shot at that kind of talent.
And so I think because of...
And listen, I think the Ivy Leagues are remarkable, right?
And so when a guy graduates from an Ivy League, you know he's smart.
When a guy graduates from a service academy, you know he's smart and he can lead and he can fight and he can take punishment, right?
And so I think our schools...
Give us an advantage that NIL and Transfer Portal give us as well.
So I don't begrudge the NIL and Transfer Portal, but I don't think it's going to slow us down.
No, same thing.
I think it's going to level out.
Like Clint said at the beginning, you make a decision based on four years or 40 years.
And so guys that come to the academies, they set themselves up for a lifetime.
They set their kids up for a lifetime.
So it's one of those things that it'll level out.
We'll still get quality players, we'll still get talented players, and we'll still be able to perform and compete against anybody in the country.
Yeah, and our dental and medical is paid for.
And I made $75 a month as a midshipman.
I see a lot of kids chasing the money right now in the last couple years, and I think the academy athletes are a different breed.
They're going there for a reason, and it's not the money.
Well, no, it's not the money.
I promise you that.
It's not the 20 -hour days.
But, you know, these young athletes that are monetizing their skill, like, I get it.
I understand that, right?
And I think it's different between, like, you have an investment philosophy of kind of a short -term yield, kind of high transaction.
You have relational.
It's just a different investment philosophy, right?
Neither of them are right or wrong.
It's just what's right for you.
And investing five years in one of the hardest places on the planet, It's going to pay dividends.
It's different guys that I talk to.
I go all over the country and the Service Academy athletes are a notch above.
I'm telling you.
You mean off.
You're trying to be polite about it.
They're just a little off.
I was going to say different.
I get it.
I was asking Gary Patterson one time.
You know, great coach at TCU, and he coached at Navy, and you look at who's coached at our institutions, you know, Paul Johnson coached at Navy, Dick Bump, it's a great passion.
And he goes, Naval Academy was the, he goes, he goes, I had to realize one time I was yelling at some of y 'all, and I realized, like, wait, these guys are trained killers.
Like, I should throttle it back a little bit.
And I'm like, not yet, but, you know, we have the capacity for it.
That's right.
What harm could you do, right?
Not a question, a comment.
The role of the sports figure right now is so important, not only in our U .S.
Yes ma 'am.
And so I just wanted to thank you for that.
So all this stuff that y 'all are talking about, how do you translate that, and I know you're not a civilian yet, but kind of in your local communities, and kind of build that trust with some of the folks you're engaging in who don't necessarily have that military background?
And also, as Navy, go Navy, beat Army.
I don't think, you know, I would tell people, like, one of the most challenging seasons of my life is when I left the battlefield and came to the border.
Because so much of my identity was bound up and physicality and all these other things.
But as I said earlier, the best parts of you come with you to whatever map you're on.
And so what my bride and I have always tried to do, she's my ring dance date from the Naval Academy.
She's got the strongest eye -rolling muscles on the planet.
I mean, she's just amazing.
She's Arnold Schwarzenegger of eye -rollers.
It's incredible.
But we try to live like we're still in.
We try to live like we're still in.
We try to lead and love our girls.
When my father died, I made him perfect and then I chased him.
And that's a recipe for failure in a lot of ways.
And I think one of the things...
Your guys know you're not the best anyways.
You might as well be honest with them because then they're going to trust you.
And I've never...
I've always wanted the girls to know who their dad really is and what their dad's really struggling with because that gives them permission to struggle as well.
So I think being authentic...
I think authenticity is what you call vulnerability when you're not scared anymore.
I mean, that's what it is.
Authenticity is what you call vulnerability when you're not scared.
When you're scared is vulnerability.
When you're not scared anymore, it's called authenticity.
I think we've always tried to be real authentic.
And I came from a community where you're measured by your authenticity.
If you speak but don't show, you're not long for that world.
So I think the things that we just brought that with us, and we try to bring that with us.
I hope to be authentic later tonight when I'm not scared of him.
You started it, man.
We're all good.
You got anything to add to that?
So I'm still in, but I think one of those things is kind of, when you talk about running to another grad, it's about, you know...
Being willing to help no matter what.
That's one of the things you get when you're a veteran, being in, is no matter who it is, no matter what they look like, you feel okay asking a question.
You need help with something.
Just extending that to the community that, you know, there's always a help, there's always a lending hand, and not always, I feel like everyone on the outside is just always second -guessing or not willing to assist a lend just because they don't know that person.
But if you're in the military, if you're a Naval grad or Army grad, it's, okay, you need what?
Oh, my car?
Sure.
It's over there.
My house?
It doesn't matter.
It's our opportunity to show value.
That's our whole deal.
Show value to the person next to you.
And just keep doing that in the community.
Like, hey, be open and willing to do the help no matter what the help is.
Just doing that.
I think that's one thing I'm looking forward to doing as I, you know, see my second chapter.
Yeah.
You'll do great, man.
Yes, ma 'am.
My brother played for West Point.
So we got to go to a lot of the games and enjoy the parties and the pageantry.
So I'm wondering, What was it like when you became spectators?
I've only been back to one game.
Because Bruce Crandall, Medal of Honor recipient, invited me to go.
So here's the deal.
I already said it.
I lost all four in a row.
So going back to those games is like driving my beautiful ex -girlfriend on her next day with a better looking guy.
And I just can't handle that.
I have a really hard time with that.
My bride says, of the dumb things you say, that's one of the dumbest.
And I'm an awful spectator.
And it's not because I'm questioning these kids now.
I just love it so much.
And there's so much of me that loved the opportunity to prove myself to the guys to the left and right of me and the coaches and family watching.
So I'm a frustrated spectator.
I have a good time.
And not because I think I can do it better than these kids.
These kids are so much better than I ever was.
It's just you love it so much it's hard to be around it sometimes.
So from my end, we take it as another reunion.
So I have a bunch of friends getting together.
We treat it like pregame.
Not like we're not drinking a bunch.
We're going to lift.
We're going to prep them for the game like we're about to play.
And we're just getting together and just in the stands.
You're still young.
You wait.
I'm joking.
So I'm a little sore afterwards.
My son's an aspirin Tylenol.
But it's just another reunion.
That's a great point, yeah.
When I do enjoy it, it's when I'm around my brothers.
It is a reunion.
That's when it's special.
So just another opportunity to get everybody together, all my teammates coming from around the country, coming together, and just excitement to see them, you know, see the games, watch, hopefully for a win.
And we're very critical, too.
And even overseas.
Overseas, I mean, those are opportunities to get reunions.
Like, you can be deployed overseas, and Army -Navy games coming up, and you find a way to jump on a bird.
You know, like, you see some Army dude and he's like, hey dude, let's watch the game together.
But you gotta fly me back.
Like, if we win, you can't just take your helicopter and leave.
I'm technically AWOL right now.
But it's a special thing.
Did that answer your question?
Well, guys, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank all of you for coming.
I wrote the Rose Bowl Institute National Constitution Center.
We're good to go.
I've shared a lot of thoughts and we appreciate all of you coming.
I bet we smoke -checked the rest of them.
They're going to be like, they were good, but not as good as they were.
All day tomorrow on either CBS Sports Network or CBS Sports and we'll kick it off around 3 and that's when I'll actually know what I'm doing.
I think.
I have confidence in you.
Okay, don't touch me.
Thank you.
Earlier today, a Senate Special Aging Committee hearing was held on empowering people with disabilities, bringing attention to the issue of home care, employment access, and economic security.
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