Army orders Lions draft pick Campbell to withdraw

DETROIT (AP)—Caleb Campbell will not get a chance to play for the Detroit Lions because of a change in military policy.


Campbell was a seventh-round draft pick for the Lions in April. At the time, Army policy would have allowed the West Point graduate to serve as a recruiter if he made the team. But a subsequent Department of Defense policy has superseded the 2005 Army policy.


In a letter to Lions president Matt Millen dated Wednesday, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jonathan P. Liba wrote that Campbell has been ordered to give up professional football for “full-time traditional military duties.”
Liba wrote that 2nd Lt. Campbell may ask to be released from his active duty obligations in May 2010. Liba said Campbell was allowed to enter the draft “in good faith.”



AP Wire 7/23/08

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"Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down"...Jimmy Durante

I feel sorry for the draft pick, not the Lions. The Lions suck, but I would rather play for them and face national humiliation rather than go to the front lines.

This could only happen to the Lions. It looked as though the organization actually made a nice move (both talent-wise and public relations-wise), but no.....it's the Lions.

Best he would have done is be on the practice squad.
The real shame is he can forget his NFL career. 2 years from now, he will be older, not trained, no experience and be that far behind just to get on a Practice Squad, which will be even harder due to his age.

And despite never playing in the NFL there will still be a chance that he will be in pain whenever he walks when he's 30.

Go figure.

Once you enlist, you are stuck and the paperwork of getting out is cumbersome...My wife has a niece who was approached by the Army when she was a sophomore in college. They promised to pay the rest of her schooling if she committed to two years of service. Being somewhat poor like most college students, she signed ze papers and now after graduating last summer and being in the service for the past 4 months she wants out, but can't escape without going AWOL or claiming that she is a nut case..

With Campbell, I am not sure if he is a military type or not, but it must be heartbreaking to have his hopes and dreams of playing on a professional sports team dashed because of some last minute BS government change...

Well, he went to West Point, so it's a pretty good bet that he's a military type!

It's unfortunate that he ended up getting jerked around like this, and particularly with it all playing out in the national media, but I'm guessing that he wasn't anticipating having any shot at the NFL for much of his time at West Point. The amount of time when he seriously thought he'd be able to do it was probably limited to the few months between getting picked in the NFL draft and the moment he heard about the Army changing its policy again. Seeing as how he went in the 7th (and final) round of the draft, he almost wasn't picked at all, and obviously this never would have been a story if he hadn't been.

This sort of thing does happen to people in the military fairly often, where they think they're going to one place or another but end up getting switched to something else at the last minute. It can be pretty rough, especially for people with families, but I imagine that's the perspective he has on it (that it's just a part of being in the military). The unfortunate thing is that it all happened in the spotlight of the national media, and that he took some personal shots from people who really should have reserved their ire for the policy that they disagreed with.

B large S
If he has any talent he will be back.
But we are at WAR !
2 years of Army aint 2 years of Navy [Rodger Staubach] His body won't die in 2 years.
He'll be smarter cause he will watch film.
He could be ready to step right in after 2 years.
I hope the Army doesn't renig on the 2 year option, cause we are at War with Iran.

T-Dat!

This is going to hurt the military schools in the future when they are trying to recruit athletes.