Army and its ‘fanatical’ coach aim for perfection. But is that enough?
New York TimesWEST POINT, N.Y. — Here is an Army football coach: Sunk into a large leather armchair facing other pieces of large leather furniture, in a room festooned with old drawings from his daughters and challenge coins gifted him by generals, wearing a gray knit sweater that’s a decent match for the crisply trimmed hair on his head, talking about obligation. “I could argue that I’m having more of an impact on people here than I could have anywhere else,” Monken says. “It wasn’t good,” says Luke Proulx, a defensive back when Monken arrived and now the program’s director of player development. “Most people, including some of our fans,” Army athletic director Mike Buddie says, “think that Jeff Monken is a West Point graduate.” In fact, Monken played wide receiver for Millikin University in Decatur, Ill., a couple hours south of home in Joliet, where his football life began as a waterboy for teams coached by his late father, Mike, a member of the state’s high school coaches Hall of Fame. Monken’s own nine-stop coaching journey – “There’s nothing else in my life I’ve ever wanted to do,” the 57-year-old says – started with a graduate assistant gig at Hawaii, where his approach told his fortune.
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Army extends the contract of coach Jeff Monken. The deal runs through 2027, AP source says
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