Chet has never been known to be a personable guy. In person he is awkward, short in words, and often can be harsh. But, he gets results… raising funds, winning, hiring great coaches, improving facilities, promoting and adding teams. You can’t argue with his results over the last 2 decades. All of this done with a tough recruiting environment and admissions requirements. Graduation rates of athletes are at the top for USNA. He has gotten results.
No one likes to see a well liked coach go. Ken was loved, he did a lot of good for USNA and lots of young men. He will be missed. I appreciate his character and example he set. COVID, NLI, transfer portal… tough few years for sure. But, it’s a business. It’s a business of recruiting 17-18 year olds. Not only that, it’s them then coming in and performing and improving. At USNA that is hard with Plebe Year. Many athletes, even at the D1 level, just don’t improve. It happens… a lot. College coaches rely on a bunch of 18-23 year old knuckle heads to pay their mortgages and buy food. It’s part of the deal. High risk, high reward. If I was only succeeding less than 50% of the time in my job, I would be canned quickly. The program will go on. Chet has a plan. I hope it’s hiring Newberry and a great OC. Only time will tell.