West Point graduate gets waiver to play for the Eagles while serving as active-duty

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5. He actually can have a big impact while playing football.

One reason why most gifted athletes that qualify won't go to a service academy is the requirement to go into the military. We see exceptions, the basketball player who was basically allowed to join the reserves instead of doing a four year hitch, but in general an elite jock gets stuck going to the service academy, occasionally one, like Roger Staubach does his hitch and come out to become an all-star professional athlete, but that is rare.