Rare Recruits: Twin Footballers Interrupt School to Join Marines

GLASSBORO, N.J. -- It was the first day of spring practice for the Rowan University football team, the unofficial beginning of another promising season for one of America's elite small-college programs.

But first, two of the team's top players, Brad Stys and Scott Stys, had an announcement to make. The identical twins from Milford, N.J., would not be returning this fall for their junior year. They were joining the military.

"Everybody's jaw dropped," Brad Stys said. "It was the last thing anybody expected to hear."

With that announcement, the 20-year-old brothers, both receivers, began the transformation from minor celebrities on the football-crazed southern New Jersey campus to raw recruits who will arrive in October amid the barking drill instructors at Marine Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina.

The decision to enlist midway through college puts the brothers in a distinct minority in the Marine Corps, which gets more than 95 percent of its recruits directly from high school.

And while entire football teams left college to fight in World War II, hardly any of today's players trade gridiron glory for the prospect of war. Pat Tillman, who walked away from a lucrative National Football League contract to join the Army Rangers after 9/11 and then died in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan, was a notable exception.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association keeps no statistics on how many student-athletes leave school early for military service.

"Most college kids don't give up football to serve their country, simple as that," said Jay Accorsi, Rowan's coach for the past five years.

Then again, Accorsi said, in nearly two decades of coaching, he hasn't come across many college kids like Brad and Scott Stys (whose last name rhymes with "size").

"They just came on real quickly and became leaders on the team," said Accorsi, whose team fell one game short of playing for the Division III national championship the past two years. "They went out of their way to tell me as early as they could about their decision to leave. They said they didn't want to hurt the team."

After Accorsi told his coaching staff that the twins were leaving, one of his assistants remarked: "If you were in a foxhole in the middle of nowhere and you wanted someone to watch your back, wouldn't you want it to be one of the Stys?"

The Stys brothers, who often finish each other's sentences, said the seeds for their decision were planted long before they were born.

Their grandfather, John Stys, was a Marine who fought in the Pacific during World War II. Their father, John Stys Jr., served with the Army's 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam.

Growing up in Milford, a small town on the Delaware River, the brothers showed athletic promise early. Their father steered them to team sports. They picked football, basketball and baseball.

"There's just a lot of parallels to life in team sports, learning things like cooperation," said John Stys Jr., 58, who played the same sports in high school before shipping off to Vietnam.

The twins' older brother, John, 22, was a standout high school football player in his own right and played a year at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa. He is now in school part time and considering enlisting in the Marines or the Army.

Although their father, who works as a floor installer, and their mother encouraged their sons to play sports, they say they never pushed military service.

The twins started exploring the option anyway, first considering attending one of the service academies or enlisting after high school graduation. They put those plans aside when college recruiters started calling.

Their two years at Rowan passed in a blur: passes caught, games won and young women impressed. Both were B students.

But they both said they felt something was missing. They had a few long conversations with Alex Shallop, a high school friend who left the Marines last winter after a four-year stint that included a tour in Afghanistan. Shallop described the experience as "a great journey," they said.

When the brothers told their parents they were going to leave school and join the military, their mother's first reaction surprised them.

"What about football?" she asked, reminding them that they haven't missed a football season since first grade.

But they had made up their minds.

"We loved playing football and it wasn't easy to walk away," Brad Stys said. "It just seemed like there's bigger things on the table than school and football. Now just seemed like the right time to do this."

The brothers contacted Sgt. Phillip Whilden, a Marine recruiter stationed in Somerville, N.J. He went to the Styses' home and answered more than two hours of questions. At one point, his boss, Staff Sgt. Trevor Barlow, called Whildren's cell phone.

"These guys going to join?" Barlow asked.

"Boss, they've got a lot of questions," Whilden replied.

About three months later, the brothers signed the contract, opting for the infantry.

Barlow said he had no problem with the twins waiting before signing up.

"You worry about people who rush into decisions like this; they might not be somebody you want on your team," Barlow said. "But these guys, we are really proud to have them as part of our team."

Rain fell sporadically on John Page Field in Glassboro during Rowan's season opener against Christopher Newport University Sept. 2.

Brad and Scott Stys were there, viewing the game from an unfamiliar place -- the stands.

"It's really tough not being out there," said Scott, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "Rowan Football" on the front and the team's unofficial motto on the back: "You gotta play this game like somebody just hit your mom with a two-by-four."

As the game went on, other students approached the twins. They all wanted to know when the brothers were leaving and if they were scared.

The answers: Oct. 2 and no.

"We can't wait to go," Brad said at least a half-dozen times.

The game ended with Rowan beating the visitors from Newport News, Va., 32-8. The twins walked out of the stadium and stood near the team's locker room. As the players filed off the field, they saw the Styses and broke into grins.

"Hey, it's the Stys guys," somebody yelled as the players crowded around them, slapping their backs and grabbing their hands.

Later, the twins said they aren't done at Rowan. After serving their four years, they plan to return.

"If they haven't won a national championship by then, hopefully we can come back and help them win it," Brad said. "But they've got enough talent to win it this year."

Scott pondered that statement for a second.

"Then I guess we'll read about it in the paper down at boot camp."

Sept. 12, 2006

(Wayne Woolley is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be contacted at wwoolley@starledger.com.)

Minor detail and not to seem like a pin-head, but...
The percentage of regular commissioned officers in the Navy without degress approaches 0. Most Mustangs are LDOs - Limited Duty Officers - who provide specific skill sets and expertise. As I recall the LDO program they had to make E-6 to be eligible, and had no reasonable expectation of being promoted beyond O-5. The number of O-6 billets for LDOs was something in the neighborhood of 25 fleet wide - and they were not eligible for combat command. I am not certain that the USMC even has such a program. (Yes, I know they have CWOs, but, while simlar, it is not the same.)

Their opportunity would be better were they to complete their first enlistment, use their GI Bill, finish college, and then re-enter through OCS as regular officers. Prior enlistees are given considerable preference when selecting candidates for OCS, perhaps even more so in the Corp.

And another wet-blanket statement from the fringes:
I would never declare someone officer material until they have stepped through the doors and proven themselves. Some of the promising (on paper) young men and women I saw as Midshipmen at Annapolis and Candidates at OCS quit or washed out, while the gritty, determined, 'average Joes' often turned out to be superstars.

My 2 cents: take it for what its worth.

And despite all that - I am proud of these young men and wish them health, safety, and success. Unfortunately the character they already show is becoming rarer and rarer in today's America.

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