Bad Precedent

Ensign Napoleon McCallum, currently assigned to duty at the Long Beach Naval Station, is an excellent football player. He set records playing halfback as a student at the U.S. Naval Academy, and now his talents are coveted by the Los Angeles Raiders. But McCallum has an obligation that other football stars don’t have when they leave college--a tour of active duty.

Navy Secretary John Lehman and other Navy officials are trying to decide whether to make an exception to the rules for McCallum, to give him extra leave time so that he can play for the Raiders during the season that begins next month. Navy brass talk about a couple of days off per week, but Raiders Coach Tom Flores says that McCallum would need as many as four days off.

No doubt the Raiders could use McCallum to back up halfback Marcus Allen, who has been a star in recent years. But there is also no doubt that the Navy brass would be setting a very bad precedent if they were to make a special exception for McCallum. His education at the Naval Academy was paid for by the public in anticipation that he would serve as an officer for at least five years. If football stars can be exempted from that rule, what of academy graduates with skills in other areas, from management to engineering? Could they moonlight, too?

It would be fun to watch McCallum play for the Raiders, and it might produce reams of favorable publicity for the Navy. But McCallum’s--and the Navy’s--obligation to the nation is far more important than either of those transitory benefits. Like earlier service academy football stars--Army’s Glenn Davis and Navy’s Roger Staubach come to mind--McCallum should fulfill his commitment to the armed forces before pursuing a career in professional sports.