In sports, there’s old school and new school. Most people fall on one side or the other, but Connor Slomka is both — an old-school warrior and new-age athlete. Warrior is a term thrown around too loosely in sports, but it applies to cadets training to be officers in the military during an endless war on terrorism.
Slomka plays fullback in Army’s triple-option offense and that’s about as about as old-school as it gets in football. He not only fits the profile as a 6-foot, 240-pound “Sledgehammer” — his high school nickname — he has a family tree that rooted him to West Point’s 217-year history.
His father Jim Slomka was an Army defensive lineman from 1991-93. He served 10 years, flying Blackhawk helicopters until retiring as a captain. When Connor was entering his grade-school years, his father was a West Point assistant athletic director.
“I was at football practice all the time,” Connor said. “There are still people here that remember me as a 6-year-old kid running around.”
Now for the new age:
Slomka had verbally accepted a lacrosse scholarship offer from Ohio State as a high school sophomore. Lacrosse is one that fastest growing sports in the 21st century, although its history is traced to Native Americans. That was before West Point began recruiting him Pine-Richland High in Wexford, Pa.
What’s a productive millennial with so many options to do?
He weighed the pros and cons and said he his choice came down a simple concept. He not only decommitted from a school, he decommitted from a sport. How new-school is that?
“I love football,” he said. “That and along with everything that comes with attending West Point and serving helped me decide I’d rather play football more than lacrosse.”
Ohio State’s loss was Army’s gain, but team gains are the focus of Slomka as the Black Knights (3-2) face Western Kentucky (3-2) at 7 p.m. Saturday night in Bowling Green are about yardage on the ground in games.
“We’re nowhere near where we want to be as at team yet,” he said. “We have a lot of potential. We have to keep committing to what coaches are telling us to do. I think we’ll see improvement; we haven’t reached our peak at all yet.”
He is leading the team in rushing to date with 74 carries for 308 yards and three touchdowns in four games, averaging 4.2 yards per carry and 77.0 a game.
Army’s team rushing average of 273.4 ranks eighth in the nation, but it is well behind last year’s national-leading average of 349.8 that drove Army to an 11-2 record, second straight Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy and Armed Forces Bowl romp over Houston.
Quarterback Kelvin Hopkins led team in rushing with 1,017, but he has only 253 in essentially three games due to a knee injury sidelining him.
The Black Knights also are adjusting to missing center Bryce Holland perhaps more than expected as one of the two graduated offensive linemen. He was a bulwark in the middle as a 3-star recruit out of high school that chose West Point over any NFL aspirations to pursue an Army career.
Slomka is filling the lead fullback role following the loss of 1,286 yards between two graduates, Darnell Woolfolk (956) and Andy Davidson (330). Slomka was the third fullback behind them with 74 carries for 324 yards and five touchdowns.
Sharing the fullback role with Slomka – it’s too punishing of a position for one player to take all the snaps – are Sandon McCoy (38-173, 4.6/34.6) and Cade Bernard (13-77, 5.9/15.4).
“My focus is week to week because you never know what your role is going to be one game to the next,” he said. “One game you might get more carries and the next you’re a lead blocker. I have to be flexible for whatever role I have to play.”
Army is playing its second game after a bye week when fundamentals were emphasized after what head coach Jeff Monken characterized as a sloppy 52-21 win over Morgan State.
“We’re working on little details because if you get tired your fundamentals break down,” he said. “With an offense like ours, fundamentals make a difference if you’re tired or if the other team is tired.”
That method of striving to improve is as old-school, but there is one more new-school story that helped make West Point his choice.
His father was willing to step back rather than pressure his son into a family tradition. Jim Slomka understood the discipline and demands required to get through a military academy is different than asking a son or daughter to follow a family path to State U.
“Knowing what that commitment to West Point represents, that’s a decision you have to make on your own,” Jim said. “He asked a lot of questions and did a lot of soul searching, but if you ask him, he’s happy he made it. He’s learned tremendous leadership skills and met people that have left a mark on him.”
Not bad for an old-school fullback.
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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://www.shanahan.report/a/forty-four-underground-railroad-legacy-facts
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.”
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