Sometimes a football player — even a hard-nosed defensive end — needs gentle, reassuring words only his mother can provide. That includes accomplished athletes like this one:
1. A kid from Oceanside High, the school that turned out Pro Football Hall of Famer Junior Seau, a toughness model that has eternally cast his competitive spirit over the seaside campus.
2. A dominant high school player with the talent to be recruited to play at the college level.
3. A guy with persistence to come back from two devastating mobility injuries, torn knee ligaments and a ruptured Achilles’ tendon.
4. And last but not least a student-athlete at Army West Point, where football players often say practice is the easiest part of the day for a cadet training to become a U.S. Army officer.
All of the above describe Army senior Amadeo West, a defensive end last year switching to outside linebacker this season based on his strong play.
A year ago West had worked his way back into the lineup for the second half of the season at defensive end, but even a confident athlete confronts doubts when he’s recovering from injuries that require a lengthy rehab. He struggled in his first couple of games before the making phone call home he says was his turning point. He continued the upward trajectory to his first career start in the Army-Navy Game.
As West prepares for the Black Knights’ season opener against Rice on Aug. 30 at Michie Stadium, he looked back upon 2018 and shared credit. He wasn’t too proud to admit he called his mom, Maria Lonedico.
“I was frustrated with how I was playing,” West said during a break from fall camp.
As a freshman in 2016, West played sparingly. He missed his 2017 sophomore season with a knee injury suffered in fall camp. Then, as he was rounding into shape six months later, he suffered ruptured Achilles’ tendon. That sidelined him through the first half of 2018. His first two games back he struggled against Miami of Ohio and Eastern Michigan.
“The second game (EMU) was the worst game of my life,” West said. “It was a humbling experience. I was frustrated. My mom said, ‘You just have to keep working. You can’t be frustrated. Stay patient. You’ll be back.’
“After that, everything clicked. I had a great game against Air Force. ”
Not to disparage Eastern Michigan, but playing poorly against EMU and strongly against Air Force, an intense rival, is like Alabama struggling against The Citadel and then whipping Clemson. The Army-Navy Game has more history, but Air Force, Army and Navy play their round-robin series for the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy with equal intensity.
Considering West’s play down the stretch, it’s safe to say his mom’s advice saved his season. And it’s not a stretch to say his mom preserved Army’s win over Navy. West, a 6-foot-2, 255-pounder, recorded six tackles against Navy, but his biggest play in a pivotal game moment was sacrificing himself away from the ball.
Late in the fourth quarter, Army was clinging to a 10-7 lead with Navy in possession of the ball and momentum. But with Navy facing a third-and-12, Army defensive coordinator Jay Bateman (now at North Carolina) called for a blitz from outside linebacker Kenneth Brinson.
West, playing defensive end next to Brinson, tied up two blockers as Brinson spun his way past the offensive tackle and strip-sacked quarterback Zach Abey into a fumble that Brinson recovered. The Black Knights scored four players later to secure what turned to be a 17-10 final score.
The soft-spoken Brinson, a senior in 2018, described the play this way when asked last season how it developed.
“Amadeo West was standing next to me and said to go make a play. ‘Go get a sack.’ I got off the ball and I was lucky enough to make the play.”
West laughed when hearing Brinson’s replay.
“I told (Bateman) let’s run strike,” said West, referring to a play that would have positioned him to rush the quarterback. “He said, ‘No, we’ve got Kenny on the edge. It’s a mismatch.’ ”
That’s when he gave Brinson encouragement and put his nose into the dirt tying up two blockers.
“I had to do what’s best for the team,” West said. “It was cool to see Kenny get that strip-sack. I knew he could do it. I learned a lot from him last year. One thing is he treated every player from a starter on down the same way.”
Army head coach Jeff Monken and new defensive coordinator John Loose, who was promoted from coaching the safeties, are counting on West using in 2019 what he learned from Brinson. His switch from defensive end is to Brinson’s outside linebacker role is a transition that began with spring football.
“There is a lot more reading when standing up,” he said. “Down in a three-point stance you’re reacting. In a two-point stance you’re reading and reacting. I had to learn the reading aspect. I had to learn the balance of reading and turning it loose.”
Advice from Monken, Loose, outside linebackers coach Matt Hachman and the lessons learned through Brinson will serve West best this season.
But if at any time he needs a boost, mom is only a phone call away.
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I invite you to follow me on Twitter @shanny4055
Tom Shanahan, Author: Raye of Light http://tinyurl.com/knsqtqu
— Book on Michigan State’s leading role in the integration of college football. It explains Duffy Daugherty’s untold pioneering role and debunks myths that steered recognition away from him to Bear Bryant.
http://shanahan.report/a/the-case-for-duffy-and-medal-of-freedom
Don’t believe the myths at Duffy Daugherty’s expense about Bear Bryant’s motivation to play the 1970 USC-Alabama game or myths about the Charlie Thornhill-for-Joe Namath trade. Bear Bryant knew nothing about black talent in the South while he dragged his feet on segregation.
http://shanahan.report/a/myths-that-grew-out-of-1970-alabama-game-with-usc
http://shanahan.report/a/mystery-solved-in-thornhill-and-namath-myth
David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner and biographer; “History writes people out of the story. It’s our job to write them back in.”
https://rayeoflightbook.com/ordering-information/
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