Chief S Trophy

Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo inherited a potentially thankless assignment when he was hired to replace Paul Johnson, the architect of a dramatic change in fortune for a football program that had languished for decades before his appointment. Niumatalolo not only picked up where Johnson left off, but he has taken the program even further, defeating Notre Dame twice in his first three years as coach and winning the Commander in Chief's Trophy in two of those three seasons. What Niumatalolo does not do is promote himself.

Navy football coach Ken Niumatalolo said Wedneday that he received a text message from the family of freshman quarterback Ralph Montalvo, saying that the player who was critically injured in a car accident near his home in South Florida last week has been upgraded to “serious but stable” condition. Montalvo remains in a medically-induced coma at the Kendall Regional Medical Center in Miami, according to Niumatalolo. Reading from the text message, Niumatalolo said that Montalvo's setback on Monday was due to a sinus infection, but added that the swelling on Montalvo's brain has gone down in the past day. Montalvo was a passenger in a car that was involved in a single-vehicle accident Thanksgiving night.

PHILADELPHIA - It was homecoming for Navy's Kyle Eckel. He grew up in Haverford, Pa., and calls south Philadelphia his home. He swears there is no better food on earth than a Philly cheese steak, and about 30 friends and family members attended last night's game to cheer him on. And Eckel didn't let anybody down. On a night when the U.S. military academies took center stage on the college football field, Eckel grabbed much of the spotlight in Navy's 34-6 win over Army before an announced crowd of 70,844 at Lincoln Financial Field.

For most of Ken Niumatalolo's first four years as coach at Navy, the references to the past were nearly all positive reminders of how the program had kept up the standard set by his mentor and predecessor, Paul Johnson. Even last year, when Niumatalolo suffered his first losing season and Navy had its first losing record in nine years, there seemed to be a feeling that the Midshipmen weren't very far off, with five of the seven losses coming by a total of 11 points. This season is different - a painful flashback to what Navy football was like when Johnson first arrived in 2002.

President Barack Obama awarded Navy's football team with the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy on Thursday afternoon in the East Room at the White House. Here are the president's remarks: Hello, everybody.  (Applause.)  Hello.  Please, everybody have a seat.  Well, good afternoon.  Welcome to the White House.  I want to start by recognizing Coach Ken Niumatalolo, my fellow Hawaiian, for being here once again -- where is he?  There he is right here.  (Laughter.)  Hard to miss him.  Give him a big round of applause.  (Applause.)