After he graduates from the Naval Academy, Alexander Teich figures he will lose up to 30 pounds, which is difficult to comprehend considering his tightly muscled, 6-foot, 217-pound frame.
No, his plan isn’t the South Beach Diet, Weight Watchers or Nutrisystem. It’s the Navy SEALs, the elite special forces unit trained for unconventional warfare.
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Teich is one of 28 midshipmen selected from his class of more than 1,000.
The endurance training required for the job is so demanding that even the most fit members of the force experience physical metamorphoses. One exception, however, was former Navy linebacker Clint Bruce, who entered at 6-foot, 245 pounds.
“I lost maybe six pounds,” said Bruce, 37. “I never got below 240 when I was training. I’m just that kind of body style — a cylinder block.”
Bruce and Teich are among a handful of Navy football players who have been chosen for the duty. On Service Selection Day, when “firsties” (seniors) are informed of their post-graduation fate, they are subject to various indignities at the hands of freshmen.
As a SEAL, Teich’s penalty was to have his head and eyebrows shaved. Those selected as Marines had their head shaved but not their eyebrows. Those chosen for Explosive Ordnance Disposal have their heads shaved and half their eyebrows removed.
This year’s Service Selection Day fell on Nov. 30. Teich had other business to attend to, a media luncheon promoting the Army-Navy game. When Teich returned to Bancroft Hall, however, the freshmen were waiting for him.
“Yeah, they got me good,” said Teich, who is from Conroe, Texas, and has 790 yards rushing this season.
Teich was selected in a year in which SEALs have received plenty of attention. When the United States discovered the Pakistan location of Osama bin Laden, SEALs were sent. A few months later, when a U.S. helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, 15 of the casualties were from the same SEAL Team 6 unit that killed the world’s most wanted terrorist.
Teich became interested in becoming a SEAL after coming to Annapolis. Training in the summer with SEAL Team 4 at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Virginia helped Teich demonstrate his fitness for the unit.
“I was working all summer for football shape. SEALs is a whole different deal,” Teich said. “Everything in football is for explosion. Everything in SEALs is for endurance.”
Teich’s interest in the SEALs came later than Bruce’s. Coming out of high school, Bruce was heavily recruited but chose the Naval Academy because he specifically wanted to be a SEAL.
“What mighty men could I run with?” Bruce asked. “I wanted to run with men like that.”
It won’t be long before Teich will be one of them. Before that, however, he’s got one last football game to play Saturday against Army.
“This is the game you come here to play,” Teich said. “This is the game that as a freshman you don’t really get it until you get to the stadium, and then it’s ‘Whoa.’?”
