COLORADO SPRINGS — When Troy Calhoun was an Air Force Academy student, all cadets had to spend part of one summer going through a three-week program labeled “SERE” — or Survival Evasion Resistance Escape. They were downed pilots, attempting to avoid capture, and regardless of their skills in the program, they eventually were “interned” behind barbed wire.
“It was one of the most miserable 20-day periods of my life,” Calhoun, the AFA’s second-year head coach, said Wednesday at the Falcons’ media day. “The 48 hours in the simulated POW camp . . . when you’re going through it, you’re thinking, ‘There is nothing worse than this.’ And yet I’d also tell you that it was one of the greatest sources of pride in my life, too.”
SERE no longer is part of the academy program, but there is talk of bringing it back in some form. Calhoun said he would be all for it.
“It develops even more mental toughness in a kid here at the Air Force Academy,” he said. “As a football coach here, you have to have that on your team.”
While players in most other major programs are on campuses all summer, working out in unsupervised 7-on-7 drills and otherwise getting ready for the upcoming season, the Falcons often aren’t just scattered across the country — but around the world.
Each summer, cadets have three three-week “periods,” with one usually leave time and the other two either academic summer-school-type study or military visits and work. The military part is exposure to what they’re in for as officers after graduation.
There was a Falcons roster full of examples on the practice field Thursday, and here’s just one:
Senior cornerback Kevin Rivers, who wants to be a pilot, spent part of last summer following pilots in a fighter squadron at Mountain Home AFB in Idaho. He took an “incentive” ride in the back seat of an F-15 and was unfazed. “They said, ‘You want to take a ride? Hop in,’ ” Rivers said, smiling. “I got a little sick the first time, but they said that’s normal. I enjoyed it and I definitely want to get back up there.”
This year, he spent his three separate three-week periods doing: immersion study in Spanish, living with a family in Nerja, Spain; teaching the honor code to incoming academy “doolies”; and taking an astronomical engineering course.
“I hope I did well,” he said.
He already has.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
