Hoops stars to officers

Robert Sanchez from the Denver Post has written a great article about the Air Force men's basketball team. Four of the starters are seniors and are now months away from being commissioned as officers in the US Air Force. Sanchez does a great job of contrasting the difference between these young men and their counterparts at "normal" universities, and then describing what they have waiting for them after graduation.

They expected to play basketball somewhere, but their talents were more suited for Division II ball, or the Ivy League, where several of them had offers.
Still, in their minds, they imagined sinking the game-winning shot in front of thousands of screaming fans on national television. They imagined they could someday have their own sliver of March Madness.
But they never imagined the opportunity would come on a hillside in Colorado, where the iron gates around the campus are as much about keeping people in as they are about keeping others out.
"One of the most common sayings around is that this is a great place to be from, but not be at," says Eric Kenzik, a 22-year-old junior from Florida who wants to fly Air Force transport planes or bombers upon his graduation next year - a decision his parents support.
"It's one of those things where you can't explain it if you're in it, and you can't understand it unless you're part of it," senior center Nick Welch says. "Survive this, and then you'll know."
It's hard to call the academy a college because it is unlike any collegiate experience.
You're told when to wake up, when to eat, when to go to class, when to study and when to go to bed.
Academy life means basic training before you step inside a classroom. It means being told your zipper has been pulled too low on your military issued jacket. It means averaging 18 credit hours a semester when a five-year player at another college might take only 24 an entire year. It means calculus and aerodynamics classes even though you're an English major who has no interest in calculus or aerodynamics. It means eating with 4,000 other cadets at the same time every day while your buddy at the University of Utah grabs a Big Mac at midnight.
But for the players who took the challenge, for them, it means the opportunity to become a better person.
"Every day of my life here, I'm being challenged to be better than I was the day before," Welch says. "By going through this, I'm developing into a leader."
At most college programs, basketball is the most rigorous and scheduled part of an athlete's life. At the academy, it's just another thing to add to the pile.
"Sometimes I'll see the look on their faces that says, 'I was up until 5 a.m. studying, I've got practice and exams and someone chewed me out this morning,"' coach Jeff Bzdelik says. "I know then that I should ease my foot off the gas."

The Falcons will be hoping against hope this afternoon to see if they make it to the Big Dance. If they don't, it won't be the end of the world. Their life is just beginning.