Lessons of football help new Navy SEAL realize his dream

Many high school athletes dream about reaching the NFL, the major leagues, the NBA, the Olympic Games . . .

Tyler Hawkins’ aspiration from the time he was a freshman playing football at Canyon Country Canyon was to become a Navy SEAL.

It will happen on Friday in Coronado during his graduation ceremony.

“It’s been a very, very long road,” Hawkins said by phone last month while taking a brief break from training exercises.

Hawkins was Canyon’s standout 5-foot-9, 180-pound linebacker on the Cowboys’ Southern Section Division II championship team coached by Harry Welch in 2005. He graduated with a grade-point average above 4.0 and received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.

This past year, he was in a class of more than 250 trainees trying to become Navy SEALs.

Only 52 made it.

Those high school days of surviving grueling wind sprints in triple-digit temperatures and refusing to accept defeat when a game looked bleak served as ideal preparation for Hawkins.

“Playing for Harry Welch for four years, he definitely pushed me and made me strong mentally and physically,” Hawkins said. “The never-quit, never-give-up attitude definitely helped from football when I really needed what I was going through.”

He said the biggest challenge was getting through what is called Navy SEAL Hell Week.

As explained by the Navy News Service, “Trainees are constantly in motion; constantly cold, hungry and wet. Mud is everywhere — it covers uniforms, hands and faces. Sand burns eyes and chafes raw skin. Medical personnel stand by for emergencies and then monitor the exhausted trainees. Sleep is fleeting — a mere three to four hours granted near the conclusion of the week. The trainees consume up to 7,000 calories a day and still lose weight.”

Said Hawkins: “It was a week straight of being wet and sandy, running close to 200 miles with a rubber inflatable boat on your head. It’s pretty much a weeklong marathon, constantly doing stuff, punishing your body and only getting a couple hours’ sleep. I got sick at the end of the week. It was hard keeping food down. It took a toll on my body.”

But he made it, and his days of being part of a 11-man defensive unit in football were just as pertinent as trying to succeed with his fellow trainees.

Hawkins, 24, has always prided himself on being versatile, and there’s nothing more important than versatility as a Navy SEAL, whether it’s being able to swim and escape a riptide or run and chase down an enemy.

“Versatility pretty much says what we can do and what our capabilities are,” he said.

Making the NFL is tough, but becoming a Navy SEAL could be tougher. It is for the few who are willing to put themselves through extreme physical and mental tests and adapt at a moment’s notice.

Life as a Navy SEAL is just beginning for Hawkins. He has been promoted to lieutenant junior grade. He’ll be going to advanced language school and will spend an additional 18 months in training before he’s deployed.

Asked for advice he’d give to high school athletes who have dreams, Hawkins said, “You have to realize it may take awhile, but as long as you work hard and never give up, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.”

Seven years ago, just before Christmas 2005, I wrote about Hawkins’ dream of being a SEAL. He was preparing for an interview to try to get into the Naval Academy. He talked about how Welch’s lessons had given him the fortitude, courage, determination and passion to excel on and off the field.

Welch, now the coach at No. 1-ranked Santa Margarita, plans to attend the graduation ceremony in the morning.

Afterward, Hawkins is going to quietly disappear from the public scene. No more stories about his football exploits or what he does in his new job. It’s part of the life he has chosen.

“Everyone has an idea what we do, but you have to be quite professional and not brag and not celebrate,” he said. “We do what the country asks of us. That’s all we need to know at the end of the day.”

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

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