West Point Grad is looking for the 3. Super Bowl ring before fulfilling the service obligation> US Department of Defense> History

When the Kansas City Chiefs run away against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl on February 9, 2025, pay attention to Cole Christiansen, a graduate from the US military academy and the replacement officer.

After graduating from West Point in 2020, the LineBacker joined the NFL as a non -dragged Free Agent at the Los Angeles Chargers. He joined Kansas City’s practice command in 2022 and earned a great Bowl ring this season, although he was not on the 53-man-active squad.

This year is different: he is in the deep card of the chiefs and makes the leap from the practice group to an outstanding linebacker. For an athlete who fully expected his football career to start a career as an army a few years ago, it is a remarkable achievement.

In 2019, President Donald J. Trump signed a memorandum that made it possible for some athletes from the Service Academy to postpone commissions and pursue professional sports.

Christiansen is one of the handful of academy outstanding services that have exploited the program. Despite his unusual career, he remained committed to the promise he made in West Point.

“As soon as I came to the academy, I just wanted to graduate, earn my commission and start my career as an army,” he said. “The opportunity to play football at the highest level is a blessing, but my ultimate goal has not changed.”

Christiansen’s unlikely path to NFL began in Suffolk, Virginia. He grew up on a riding farm in which the life of Ranch-with her daily responsibilities and wide-open rooms ensured an active childhood. Christiansen attributes to his father that he introduced him to team sport, and in third grade he was found that it was his calling – although Tackle Football was not that natural.

“I wasn’t really bigger than my colleagues,” said Christiansen. “And it took a few years before I really accepted the physical aspect of the game. But finally I stopped avoiding contact and I started having fun.”

He appeared as an outstanding defender at the Nansemond Supfolk Academy in Virginia and received more than a dozen scholarship offers last year.

One came from West Point’s defensive coordinator Jay Bateman, who discovered Christiansen in a football camp at Old Dominion University. Until then, he had not considered a service academy.

“I started researching in West Point after the camp ended,” he said. “I had received scholarships from a few schools in Ivy League, but as soon as I realized what West Point was and what it stood for, I knew that I couldn’t reject the offer.”

Christiansen was sold, but his mother was a bit skeptical. When the academy invited him to an official visit to the campus, Monica Christiansen prepared her oldest child with a number of questions for the army coaching team.

“I think there were 100 questions on their list,” said Christiansen. “I thought they would see the notepad and send me back to Suffolk with a greyhound, but coach Bateman answered every question.”

The cadets he met during the visit were equally transparent. They explained that the experience of the military academy was different. “It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be worth it,” they said. It was exactly the notes that Christiansen wanted to hear. “I knew it would be difficult, but I wanted it to be difficult,” he said.

Christiansen continued to start 35 games for the army, to serve as a two -year team captain, to earn all independent first team recognition and a place in the Collegiate Bowl of the NFL Players Association. He led the Black Knights with 112 duels last year, which was highlighted by a 16-tack performance against the Air Force.

His term in West Point was not without fighting. “I reached a low point in the second year,” he admitted. “Whether you believe it or not, it was the swimming of survival that almost brought me.”

Christiansen added 20 pounds of muscles to his framework after his first year. But his training regime this summer was tailored to the rust, not on the pool. For cadets, survival of survival is a final request, and Christiansen said he was as “floating as a sandbag”.

“I grew up near Virginia Beach and had been in the sea all my life, so I thought I could handle it,” he said. “It was a belly check. I hardly passed.”

In addition to swimming in survival, Christiansen in West Point assumed, accepted the core principles of the academy and worked on compensating for his responsibility on the soccer field with his professional tasks.

“You do not attract uniform and become another person, but West Point shapes them over time,” he said. “I was a patriot when I was young, but I only noticed the value of the service until I went to the academy.”

During his last year, Christiansen was out of the question in field artillery and chose Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, from a list of departments for Schofield Barracks, which were commissioned this summer together with his classmates. But the fate – in the form of the Memorandum 2019 – intervened. The opportunity to play the game that brought him to West Point on a professional level – and on a national stage – was too good to ignore. He received a waiver, held his service and was in an NFL uniform the following year.

When Christiansen’s football career ends, his commitment to active service on the army will be resumed. Nevertheless, his experience in West Point continues to shape his prospects.

His ability to quickly process information, discipline and commitment to his teammates has contributed to extending his professional career as a player. As soon as he is ready with football, he said he was pretty sure that a backpack will feel as natural for him as a few shoulder pads.

“I have a five-year commitment and I endeavor to let go-I don’t want to push too far down the street,” said Christiansen. “The country gave me so much. And I would not be in New Orleans if it wasn’t for this memo. It changed my life – the least I can do is to honor my commitment. If this day comes, I will be ready wherever the army needs me.