Posted on 01/19/2007 6:17:18 AM PST by FLOutdoorsman
A Naval Academy midshipman who was expelled after he failed a running test will have to pay the Navy for the cost of his education.
Baltimore County resident Frank Shannon had asked that the 127-thousand dollar bill be waived. But a senior Navy official rejected his appeal this month, saying the academy provided Shannon with ample opportunity to meet its minimum fitness standards.
Shannon failed 12 of 18 fitness tests, and failed in a series of attempts to run a mile-and-a-half in 10 minutes and 30 seconds. In his final test, he was 20 seconds short. He was expelled just weeks before graduation.
Shannon is hoping a member of Congress will intervene. Aides to Senator Mikulski suggested he apply for readmission to the academy, but Shannon is currently married and would first have to divorce his wife before applying.
And did I read correctly---this guy up and got married after he was separated from the Academy? Huh?
That is a seven minute mile. There are some folks who simply don't have the leg speed to pull it off. For those lacking speed, an endurance test should be substituted.
But if he failed 12 of 18 fitness tests, he needed some serious PT time.
Ditto. Same age, fewer kids -- if you apply for a physical job, you had better be up to it.
That would be a great leap of faith on her part.
While I applaud the academy for getting tough with washouts, recent history does not show failed Mids having to repay their tuition. If y'all remember the electrical engineering cheating scandal from the early 90s and numerous other little scandals since then, this is the first I've heard of someone having to pay. Anybody have any other info?
Especially when you're playing "Name That Tune" while hanging from your door.
I wonder what percentage of active duty officers can meet that standard? When I picture sailors I usually picture fat guys with long hair.
Twenty seconds from graduation at the U.S. Naval Academy, from his tour of duty on the USS James E. Williams and from a career as a naval officer.A former offensive lineman with shoulders that span almost 3 feet, Shannon had struggled with the academy's distance-run requirement of 1.5 miles in less than 10 minutes, 30 seconds.
---snip---
He has invested two years in the Navy, one in the academy's preparatory school and four at the school itself. But he has no degree and no Navy commission, and he owes the U.S. government more than $127,000 for his education. Students pay no tuition unless they are expelled.
---snip---
Another source of frustration is that the academy's standards are higher than the Navy's or the other service academies'. Shannon's time would have easily met the Navy requirement for a junior officer of his age.
---snip---
The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., gives cadets 14 minutes to run 1.5 miles. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the Army have the same standard, 16:34 for two miles for a 24-year-old, which would have given Shannon plenty of wiggle room.
---snip---
Shannon is a 1999 graduate of Eastern Technical High School in Essex, where he was class president, captain of the football and wrestling teams, an Eagle Scout and a member of the National Honor Society.
More than 50 universities expressed interest in the standout lineman. The University of Maryland and the University of Hawaii offered him full scholarships, but he turned them all down to go to the Naval Academy, even though it had rejected his application.
He enlisted in the Navy's nuclear power training program in Goose Creek, S.C., where sailors gain the technical know-how to serve on submarines and aircraft carriers.
After a year, Shannon moved to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to help train new enlistees in nuclear engineering. At age 19, he was offered a teaching position and a promotion to a midlevel rank, with a $50,000 bonus.
He turned that down to go to the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, R.I., hoping for a chance to go to Annapolis.
A year later, the academy accepted him, and he arrived on campus as a plebe in 2002.
Shannon had been slated to join the varsity football squad, but new head coach Paul Johnson had a different vision for the team, and Shannon was not a part of it. As an athlete, Shannon would not have been required to meet the academy's distance-run requirement until just before graduation.
---snip---
The worst part about being kicked out, Shannon said, is the debt. In addition to the $127,000 cost of his education, he owes $35,000 on a loan he took out. Offered to midshipmen in their junior or senior year, the loan has a 0.75 percent interest rate and must be repaid within four years. Now that he has been expelled, the interest rate is 18 percent.
Shannon's mother, Susan Schaub, a receptionist at a university who just bought the home in Middle River, has no way to pay back the money. His job as a store supervisor doesn't pay nearly enough to permit him to repay it.
If he had been allowed to graduate from the academy's electrical engineering program, in which he had earned a 2.8 grade-point average, he would have eventually earned a hefty salary.
But of the 236 credit hours he earned during the past seven years, only 60 can transfer, meaning Shannon would have to attend college full time for two years to get a bachelor's degree.
---snip---
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-mid0525,0,3237094.story?page=2&coll=bal-local-storyutil
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The shame of it is that they wont let him graduate, which means he has no degree and now owes $150K for 60 credits worth of college class.
I think this guy should pay back the money he wasted. He'll still come out better off in the long run and so will the military for getting rid of this deadwood before he can be put in charge.
yep, '89 grad here. The last class to have a real plebe year....
Its probably not BS nor are there probably any underlying reasons to enforce it for this guy and not the others. He failed 12 of 18 tests? He never should've gotten that far. You fail 1 and you're on remedial until you can pass it, I wonder if he had some sort of non-athletic demand on his time that would've prevented from him from participating in the mandatory PT - Drum & Bugle Corps or some other such extracurricular activity.
Unless its changed, the physical fitness tests are:
Every semester: 1-1/2 mile run, obstacle course, applied strength (hopefully they made it more of a PRT, it was pretty wierd when I was there)
Every year: some type of swimming requirement such as: treading water for 40 minutes, swimming a certian distance, showing profieciency in certain strokes etc.
At designated points in your various years: wrestling, boxing (twice), gymspastics, judo, hand-to-gland fighting.
I'll pretty much guarantee on this kids last run that the Commandant and Superintendent were out there running next to him trying to encourage him along. A 10:30 for a mile and a half in regular PT gear is not that tough, I still do that now at age 40, and I'm a 3-mile a year guy.
There was one girl that didn't graduate because she couldn't do the 10 meter jump off the high paltform. You just walk up this spiral staircase (that never ends) walk to the end and jump. She had a chaplain and the Commandant out there with her who jumped before her.... Of course looking down from up there is a nightmare, and getting a 10-meter enema if you land wrong isn't fun.......
Wow---thanks for the extra info.
This guy seems like a real sound character: enlisted nuke, NAPSter, 2.8 in Double E . . . it's a crying shame he couldn't get past the Halsey Hack.
When my hip imploded when I was in my early 50's I could *walk* 1.5 miles in about 20 minutes...without breaking a sweat or having my respiration rate go about 15/minute.
I can't recall what the PT requirements were for us to graduate Army BCT in the late 60's but I doubt they were any more lenient that those of the Naval Academy.
The Naval Academy's timed run is apparently 1.5 miles in 10 min 30 sec, as stated. It is a higher standard than the other academies, as well as the general navy standard.
He sounds like a solid citizen, but his GPA and inability to pass the PFT make it sound like me might not have been trying too hard. Why not allow him to graduate and then send him to the fleet as an NCO to work off his education?
My wife is 45 years old and has 8 kids and I bet she could come pretty close to that requirement. She can jog 4, 9 minute miles without much trouble.
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