Thoughts on 100
Navy football had a banner year in 2019. With the visibility that comes from a top-25 campaign in a difficult conference, it isn’t surprising that the program followed it up with one of its best recruiting classes in recent memory.
At least, that’s what conventional wisdom would tell you. The problem is that it isn’t entirely true. Yes, it was an excellent recruiting class, but most of the group gave their verbal commitments to Navy over the summer, before the season began. Those players had no idea that Navy was about to explode. In fact, the Mids were coming off of a very disappointing 2018 campaign. Even so, recruiting went better than ever.
I asked Navy’s director of player personnel, Omar Nelson, about this seemingly counterintuitive occurrence back in February. To him, it was hardly surprising.
“I get asked that question a lot,” he said. “You’ve just got to look toward one person, and that's our head coach.”
Nelson cringed a little bit as he said that (“he'll probably be mad at me talking to you about him”). Nevertheless, he went on to describe a scenario he’s seen play out more than once.
“Why would a player commit early? Because they know the record,” he said. “They talk to their high school head coach, and they say, ‘hey, Navy offered me.’ The high school head coach says, ‘go there.’ And if they say, ‘well, they went three and ten,’ that head coach will be like, ‘well, do you know who the head coach is?’”
According to Nelson, that usually does the trick.
“I just don't think our fan base understands who he is to college football.”
It seems like an odd thing for someone to say about a school’s all-time winningest head coach, perhaps even more so now that Ken Niumatalolo has reached the 100-win milestone. I don’t think it’s wrong, though, and I’m not entirely sure why that is. Long-time Navy fans should be amazed that any coach has been around for 100 games, let alone 100 wins. Perhaps it’s a testament to Niumatalolo’s success; the old days of going 3-8 every year are getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. Expectations are higher nowadays, as they should be. But they’re higher in large part because of what Niumatalolo has done to transform the Navy program. Since 1983, the Midshipmen have had 17 winning seasons with Niumatalolo on the sideline in some capacity. They’ve had zero without him.
Looking back, it’s incredible to see how far Navy football has come since Chet Gladchuk introduced Niumatalolo as the program’s head coach following Paul Johnson’s departure at the end of 2007. Since then, the Mids have notched top-25 wins, top-25 finishes, three more wins over Notre Dame, three seasons of ten or more wins, ten bowl berths, and a 16-9 record against the other service academies. Today’s fans may take it for granted that the Paul Johnson era's success was destined to continue under Niumatalolo, but nothing felt certain at the time, and nobody could have imagined that things could get even better.
When Johnson came to Annapolis in 2002, he was a complete departure from his predecessors. He was brash, with a my-way-or-the-highway attitude toward Academy leadership and a wisecracking wit that made his interviews must-reads. He also had an ego earned from his success as an offensive coordinator and a head coach everywhere he had been. Johnson was never a “Navy” guy. He was a Johnson guy, fueled by the desire to prove every one of his doubters wrong. All of it made him the right man to jump-start a Navy program stuck in the ‘80s, bringing it into the 21st century.
That made Navy fans nervous when he left to take the Georgia Tech job. The five years from 2003-2007 were the most prosperous Navy had seen since the end of the George Welsh era. After two decades of futility, it seemed like the football program had finally found a magic formula. Losing Johnson meant changing that formula; it felt like the end of an era, regardless of who took over as Navy’s head coach.
Johnson left for Georgia Tech on December 7, and Niumatalolo was introduced as his successor the next day. It had been a whirlwind 24 hours, and Navy’s new head coach seemed almost overwhelmed by the experience. Despite having been on Johnson’s staff since his return to Annapolis in 2002, Navy fans weren’t that familiar with their team’s new leader, and they were anxious to find out what they were getting.
For me, at least, it didn’t take long. Niumatalolo’s first game as head coach came in the 2007 Poinsettia Bowl against Utah. I went to the pregame luncheon held aboard the USS Midway the day before, along with both teams. These events usually consist of lunch, brief interviews of players and coaches, and a guest speaker. Afterward, the teams are shuttled out fairly quickly, making their way to the next event on their respective itineraries. That didn’t happen this time, though. After the event's conclusion, I watched as every Polynesian player on Utah’s team made his way to Niumatalolo to shake his hand, take a picture with him, or say a few words. He is the first Samoan head coach in college football, and there was no hiding how much that meant to those players. Right away, it was clear to me that Niumatalolo had a magnetism that extended beyond anything that happened on the field.
Indeed, Niumatalolo has won with a formula all his own. He cares about what happens in Bancroft Hall. In an era of overzealous boosters that camp out in parking lots to monitor how long their coaches are in the office, Niumatalolo doesn’t work on Sundays and encourages his assistants to spend time with their families. While football coaches are increasingly expected to live and breathe their jobs, Niumatalolo is even more passionate about his faith and has taken on enormous responsibilities within his church community. Ask him about Xs and Os, and he’ll talk to you about program culture instead.
Niumatalolo’s personal brand is defined by who he is as a man— one of faith, family, and doing the right thing— even more than his numerous accomplishments on the field. While there’s no doubt that’s exactly how he’d like to be known, it tends to overshadow just how good of a coach he is. He was part of the first class of the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame, along with titans of the game like Junior Seau, Kevin Mawae, and Kurt Gouveia. He is an offensive innovator, a ferocious competitor, and unyielding in the search for every possible way to improve his program. With all the success that he’s had in leading the Midshipmen, I once asked him if the thought that maybe he was underrated as an Xs & Os guy. He wasn’t concerned about it and even went so far as to say it was his preference.
“I don't really worry about it,” he said. “I just want the W. I always pretend like I can't speak English. I don't play poker, but I'm not going to show you everything. I might look at you and pretend like I don’t know what's going on, but I kind of like it that way, you know what I mean? Just as long as we get the W, that’s all I’m worried about.”
It is a little awkward to write a retrospective on a career that is still very much a work in progress. However, 100 wins is a milestone that deserves recognition, particularly at a school where it is more difficult to win than just about anywhere else. Navy football has a proud but inconsistent history. Niumatalolo has led the program to unprecedented prosperity, not that he’d ever take credit for it.
If he never chose to coach another game, Navy fans would owe Ken Niumatalolo a debt of gratitude impossible to repay. But if they want to try, they can start by understanding what they have.