Come Monday, Tennessee Titans fullback Collin Mooney '09 will arrive at the team’s facility for the first day of off-season workouts.
The former Army football standout, West Point graduate and current 1st lieutenant in the Army Reserves will try to make the Titans roster for a second straight season in 2013.
But for the past two weeks, the uniform he has donned is that of the military. He is completing a two-week obligation to the Army Reserves by recruiting high school students at some 90 area schools as potential Army recruits.
Is Mooney a military man playing professional football? Or is he a football player who just happens to have a military gig as a commissioned officer?
“I am a military man playing football,” he said firmly. “That’s what I came out of high school wanting to do. The NFL came out of nowhere, really.
“I had planned on serving my country and going to West Point and being an officer. The opportunity just presented itself to go to the NFL, and I just couldn’t pass that opportunity up.”