CALEB CAMPBELL: “NO ONE SAID A THING TO ME”
Posted by Michael David Smith on July 24, 2008, 10:43 a.m.
West Point graduate and Detroit Lions seventh-round draft pick Caleb Campbell learned yesterday that he will have to put his football career on hold while he fulfills his military service obligation. And while Campbell isn’t complaining, he does seem to think the Department of Defense could have been more straight with him.
In an interview with ********’s Clay Travis (Yes, Buzz Bissinger, ******** can do actual reporting), Campbell said that even though the Department of Defense apparently decided to change its policy on July 8, no one bothered to tell him until July 23, after he had made the trip to Detroit to start training camp.
Campbell was at West Point last week and his superiors presumably had ample opportunity to tell him if any changes were coming, but Campbell said the Department of Defense decision-makers “left me in the complete dark. No one said a thing to me on campus last week about anything changing. Nothing.”
Campbell doesn’t know what the future holds for him, but he thinks he will be assigned to be a graduate assistant with either the Army football team or the West Point Prep School football team this fall. After that it could be Iraq or Afghanistan.
CAMPBELL WILL COACH AT WEST POINT
Posted by Mike Florio on July 24, 2008, 5:14 p.m.
The bad news for Caleb Campbell is that he won’t be permitted to play for the Lions in lieu of fulfilling his active-duty commitment to the Army, as a result of his free four-year college education.
The good news (for Campbell, and not for the guy who’ll take his place on the front lines) is that Campbell will be staying in the U.S., coaching football at West Point.
Said Campbell on Sporting News Radio’s The Monty Show: “Before the draft, I was picked to be one of the players to stick around West Point and to help the coaches coach the football team, and just help out with the team. I actually am headed back to New York to start that job, so when they start training camp up at West Point, I’ll be helping out there, I’ll be coaching this season.”
Campbell still hopes to play pro football. “I really think I will be able to one day,” he said. “They said maybe in 2010, I’ll have the opportunity to try out for another team, and I know the Lions are there and they’d give me the opportunity, and I know that I’ll be ready for that opportunity. Whenever they say that I do have do have a chance one day, I’m going to take it, I’m going to run with it, and we’ll see what happens.”
