Navy’s Bradley Adjusts to New Role

Here’s the situation: You’re Navy’s starting halfback--the team’s third-leading rusher last year and second-leading rusher the year before that. Your team runs the ball 57 times in its opener against Brigham Young, but your number isn’t called.

Reason enough to let off a little steam on your head coach, right?

“In our system, I figured it could happen, and in the first game it did,” said senior James Bradley, who managed to smile when asked about his inactivity last week. “But this is a team thing, and my role is basically a blocking back. So if I don’t carry the ball, it doesn’t mean a whole lot as long as I’m doing my job.”

But don’t read Bradley wrong. When the Middies host The Citadel at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium Saturday, he wants to carry the ball.

“I’d like to get the ball more. I would be lying if I said I didn’t,” Bradley said. “Not carrying the ball has never happened to me before.”

And Coach Elliot Uzelac said all depends on what The Citadel defense allows.

“What the defense gives us, we’ll take. The defense gave us the quarterback, so we ran him,” Uzelac said of quarterback Alton Grizzard, who rushed a team-high 27 times for 66 yards against BYU. “I’d like balance in the running game, but it all depends on what the defense gives.”

Even if he doesn’t run the ball again this year, Bradley, a computer science major, gives the impression he really wouldn’t mind. Coming out of Elizabethtown (Ky.) High School -- with his lack of size and speed -- he said he didn’t expect to be playing on a Division I-A level.

“I’m not that fast -- I run a 4.7 (-second) 40 (yards). Then there’s my size. I’m 5-feet-7,” said Bradley. “So I didn’t really think about playing college football. I was more or less going to school for a good time.”

Despite those limitations, Bradley had an exceptional high school career. He rushed for more than 3,000 yards in his career, a school record. He once scored six touchdowns in a game. And, in his finale, he ran for 420 yards.

“He was such an exceptional performer, he was the first kid who played on the varsity team as an eighth-grader,” said Phil “Duke” Owen, Bradley’s high school coach. “As far as speed, quickness and agility, that’s just not there ... He’s one of those rare persons who gets a lot done with his ability.”

Despite the statistics, colleges did not rush to Elizabethtown with scholarship offers for Bradley. Seeing that his star athlete was not being recruited, Owen decided to contact Navy.

As a plebe, Bradley walked on and played with the junior varsity and really didn’t expect much more.

“When I first came here I felt, ‘I’m on the team, I’ll just practice,”’ Bradley said. “I didn’t expect to go out and start. I felt I would do whatever I could.