The Pentagon on Monday reversed a 2016 policy that allowed cadets and midshipmen at its service academies to be recruited directly to professional sports.
Instead, the academy athletes will again have to serve two years as officers on active duty before going on reserve duty or leaving the military to pursue sports careers.
The policy was eased last year after a talented Navy midshipman, Keenan Reynolds, was recruited by the Baltimore Ravens football team. But the Pentagon said it no longer believes that letting people move to the NFL and other potentially high-dollar, high-recognition sports is a good idea.
“Our military academies exist to develop future officers who enhance the readiness and the lethality of our military services,” Dana White, the new chief Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a released statement. “Graduates enjoy the extraordinary benefit of a military academy education at taxpayer expense.”
White said the policy change takes effect with the coming graduating class and noted that the Defense Department has a storied history of sports stars.
She named football great Roger Staubach, who won the Heisman Trophy while playing at the Naval Academy and went on to serve in the Vietnam war; Chad Hennings, who played football at the Air Force Academy and then the Dallas Cowboys; and basketball star David Robinson, a Naval Academy graduate who served for two years in the military before starting his professional career.
