Navy football assistant Rick Lantz was getting ready to travel to Buffalo to recruit an undersized wide receiver he had received a tip about. Before departing, Lantz decided he better get approval from his boss.
“I’ve got a line on a pretty good receiver, but the problem is that he weighs 140 pounds,” Lantz told head coach George Welsh.
It was January, 1975 and Welsh was trying to turn around a struggling program that suffered seven straight losing seasons. Navy lacked team speed and that was the biggest attribute the second-year head coach was concerned about.
“I don’t care how big he is.