Veterans & Football: The Parallels Are Many
November 11, 2015 | Football
by Lee Pace
Kevin Shwedo finds it remarkable that he looks at the Carolina football roster from the late-1970s and finds the names of five career military guys, two law enforcement officers and one FBI agent who's still involved in counter-terrorism work.
“That's quite a statistical anomaly,” says Shwedo, a defensive back who lettered in 1978 and earlier in 2015 retired at the rank of colonel after 32 years in the U.S. Army. “Your odds of getting to retirement in the military are so small to begin with, and to find five of us who made it to retirement coming from the same university and football program is quite remarkable. Then you add the guys in law enforcement and FBI to it. We all shared the common bond of football and the values we learned playing the game that translated perfectly into our careers.”
Order. Structure. Punctuality. Chain of command. Teamwork. Planning, execution and debriefing. Persevering through pain, discomfort and difficult circumstances. The parallels are significant between the military and a football team.
“We had a saying in the Seals, 'Seal training is easy, all you do is never quit,'” says Mike Argo, a letterman on the defensive line in 1978-79 who went on to a three-decade career as a U.S. Navy Seal. “We had another one that said, 'The only easy day was yesterday.'
"It's same kind of environment in football, particularly training camp and spring practice. There's a level of mental torture and discipline that you get from football that sets you up well for Seal training. It's the same kind of environment.”
Shwedo and Argo will be recognized Saturday during Military Appreciation Day festivities in Kenan Stadium. Shwedo today lives in Columbia, S.C., and is executive director of the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, and since the October flooding that ravaged the area has lead the state's disaster recovery efforts. Argo works in the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center in Washington, D.C., as a government contractor.
Shwedo says when he learned he and Argo were to be recognized, he did some research to find out if any other teammates went the military route after graduation. He learned that Steve Briggs, John Rood and Max McGee were career military guys, that Delbert Powell and Wayne Tucker worked in law enforcement and Rick Downs became an FBI agent.
“I was interested to find a group of individuals who went an entire career and were very successful based on a skill set you develop on a football field,” he says. “I couldn't find anyone who joined and got out, though I might have missed someone.
“It starts with the idea of teamwork and not letting your buddies down. You identify a common goal and mission and are focused on being successful. You look at the individuals you are going through practice with and going through the weight room with and not wanting to let them down. Those are the same attributes you use in combat arms. You can draw an analogy that whether you're in the military planning a combat operation or playing a football game, it's a synchronized team effort that makes you successful. Any weakness in the chain destroys you.”
Argo remembers the rigors of preseason training camp, of defensive line coach Tom Harper routinely keeping his players for extra work after practice in what was called “The Nutcracker Drill”—essentially a 3-on-1 demolition derby. He also remembers five-mile swims at night in open ocean off the San Diego coast during Seal training when both of his thighs cramped up and there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but keep swimming through the pain.
“In football we had 12 or 15-minute drills and then they would blow a horn and you go to the next one,” he says. “You conditioned yourself mentally to just get to the next horn and do the best you could—one horn to the next. In Seal training, we said 'One day at a time, one evolution at a time.' Those were huge tools you learned in football to set up your mind for Seal training.
“The coaches would tell you if you're hurt, to suck it up, work your way through it—unless you were really hurt. Basically, you learn to push yourself through it. It was no different in the Seals. If you're out in the ocean, it wasn't like you get out and shake it out. You just kept going.”
Argo remembers leading missions—perhaps launching at night in a mini-submarine from a nuclear power sub, traveling under water, anchoring, placing an explosive on an enemy sub, then returning to the mother ship—and the planning and execution being similar to a game.
“We had mission-planning sessions, 'Mission Planning 101,' where you plan it and rehearse it,” he says. “There's a huge correlation with sports. You devise a strategy, practice it, then take it to the game. In my case as an officer, I was involved in the planning and the execution. Mission-planning and rehearsing are exactly like game-planning and practice. You debrief a mission after it's over—was it successful, could it have gone better, was it a failure? You regroup and learn from it and you don't point fingers and blame others.”
Shwedo and Argo both say they have been heartened by hearing from their teammates who have learned of Saturday's recognition—to occur between the first and second quarters—and have thanked them for their service to their country.
“It's meant a lot, it's been very gratifying,” Argo says. “I'm going to see some guys this weekend I haven't seen in many years.”
Another benefit of a career in military service is a guy in his late-50s can remain fit and fiddle while others are going to seed. Shwedo plays rugby regularly and has competed in tournaments on national levels.
“It's the best stress-reduction tool I can think of,” he says, noting that the values instilled by competition, structure and teamwork carry across many platforms.