Creedyn Foulgers unexpected journey to the Army-Navy game

Creedyn Foulger first experienced the Army-Navy game last year as a plebe in sweats on the sideline.

Not only was it a thrill to see the Midshipmen upset the Black Knights in Philadelphia, 17-13, but he witnessed the colorful pageantry and tradition surrounding the storied rivalry first hand with its pregame parades, uniforms, flyovers, visits by military leaders and overwhelming atmosphere of patriotism.

“It’s amazing,” said Foulger, a Midshipmen third class. “I didn’t know what to expect last year. You kind of have a little bit of it with the Air Force game earlier in the year, but the Army-Navy game goes to a whole new level. There’s a whole feeling to it. I don’t know how to describe it, you just have to get to one someday. It’s a bucket-list item. Everybody should go to at least one Army-Navy game. It’s a different feeling.”

The 6-foot-3, 255 pound defensive tackle will be on the sidelines this Saturday when Army and Navy play again, this time in full pads wearing jersey No. 93.

It’s a long way from where Foulger expected to be as a young man growing up in Wellsville, Utah. But it’s where the returned Latter-day Saint missionary knows the Lord has led him.

“Everything has lined up exactly how it is supposed to be,” he said. “Getting hurt my senior year led me to my mission. My mission led me to Navy, and every one of those trials in between. None of it has been what I wanted or expected as a kid, but it has always been what I needed. He will continue to do that for me because He loves me. Every time I stop and look back I see all the blessings I have despite all of the adversity. I’m very thankful for Him.”

Three broken hips

More than five years ago, Foulger was a three-sport athlete at Mountain Crest High School in Hyrum, Utah, with dreams of playing college football and attending Stanford University.

One Friday night against rival Logan High, Foulger remembers catching a pass across the middle and being tackled from behind. After the play, he couldn’t walk. Somehow he had suffered a broken pelvis.

Remarkably, Foulger said he felt good enough to play about six weeks later when his team reached the state championship game. He was punting the football when he broke his hip a second time.

This time Foulger sat out his senior season of basketball and sacrificed skiing to recover. But he injured his pelvis a third time while fielding a ground ball during a baseball game the following spring.

Doctors and specialists said they had seen similar cases before — with professional rodeo bull riders.

“It ended up that my hamstring was so strong, it was pulling so hard on the bottom of my pelvis that I was breaking my own pelvis,” Foulger said.

Doctors repaired the problem by surgically installing a six-inch screw in Foulger’s pelvis.

Foulger also underwent shoulder surgery to fix a torn labrum.

Mission during a pandemic

Almost a year after his high school graduation, Foulger found hiking and walking in the mountains of Colombia to be ideal exercise in recovering from hip surgery. He was there serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Foulger served in the Church’s Colombia Medellín Mission for a little over a year before he and many other missionaries returned home due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was home for about three months and reassigned to labor in Baltimore, Maryland, where he completed his missionary service.

Foulger considers serving a mission one of the best decisions he has ever made because it prepared him for life at the U.S. Naval Academy. Many of his peers, valedictorians or exemplary students with impressive accolades and accomplishments, have arrived straight from high school and found life at the academy extremely difficult and demanding, he said.

“If I didn’t have something like that [a mission] to push me, be on my own and learn a language, feel lonely, if I didn’t have that experience, I don’t know how I would be able to do it here,” Foulger said. “This place is designed to push you to your limits and overwhelm you. I felt a lot of that on the mission, so it’s helped me a lot specifically here.”

Serving a mission also strengthened Foulger’s faith and relationships with his family, he added.

Detour to Annapolis

Foulger’s Stanford dream didn’t materialize, but he happily signed to play football at Utah State University before leaving on his mission.

While he was gone, USU experienced two coaching changes. Upon his return, Foulger enrolled as a student but was informed by the new staff that his scholarship was no longer available. Joining the team as a walk-on was also not an option.

“It was very frustrating for me and my family,” he said. “I was having a hard time accepting it. They had to tell me a couple times it wasn’t going to work.”

Not ready to give up on his dreams, Foulger began contacting coaches, and with help from his high school coach, made some connections at Air Force and Navy. It was late in the application process, but one opportunity opened up with Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Foulger accepted an offer without meeting any coaches in person or knowing much about the team, although he was familiar with the area and had some friends there from his mission.

Foulger did know that Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo was a Latter-day Saint because he was featured in the Church’s 2014 film, “Meet the Mormons,” a movie he and his companions had shared with people as missionaries. He also knew that Joe DuPaix, an assistant coach, was a returned missionary.

Surviving as a plebe

All incoming freshman at the U.S. Naval Academy are required to take part in a rigorous training program called “Plebe Summer.” The course is designed to be physically and mentally demanding to “lay the foundation of the Academy’s four-year professional development curriculum,” according to usna.edu.

Foulger was told it would be “a hard summer camp,” but it was even more difficult than he imagined. He laughs as he remembers walking in the door on the first day and being screamed at to tuck in his shirt, shave his head and begin each sentence with “sir and ma’am.”

But that wasn’t the hardest part of his first year at the Naval Academy.

“I alway push myself to be the best I can. I come here and I’m with 40 people in my company and they are all the best at everything and really smart,” Foulger said. “So just accepting the fact that my best isn’t the same as other people’s, and that’s OK.”

The highlight of his plebe year came at the end of his first semester. After seeing Navy defeat Army last year and completing his finals, Foulger was never so grateful to return home and spend Christmas with his family.

He remembers he walked in the house, gave his mother a huge bear hug and began to weep.

“You guys have no idea what I went through, but I did it,” he said. “It almost felt like coming back from the mission. I’ve been learning, making myself better, but there is always low-lows and high-highs and you just have to press through them.”

Regaining football form

Foulger saw limited action for the first time in almost four years when Navy hosted Delaware earlier this season. He also got on the field against Memphis, but has spent most of the season as a backup defensive tackle. He’s still regaining football form and expects to play more in the coming years, he said.

“Getting your body back into football shape is hard in general,” the sophomore said. “It’s been so long.”

Foulger was featured in a Navy YouTube video earlier this year in which assistant coach Jerrick Hall praised the 22-year-old defensive lineman for his leadership and maturity.

“He’s been through some things that some of our guys have not, and he’s going to be there for them to help them,” Hall said. “It’s going to be good to have someone that mature in the room.”

Playing for a Latter-day Saint stake president

One of the highlights of Navy football for Foulger has been playing for Niumatalolo, who also serves as a stake president in the Church and who Foulger says diligently refrains from using colorful language around his players.

“He does a good job of saying the right things at the right time and motivating us when he needs too,” the player said.

Foulger loves the program’s culture of brotherhood and the simple mantra of “Choose the Right,” implemented by the Polynesian coach.

“I’ve never met anyone like him,” Foulger said of Niumatalolo. “He’s a stake president, he has a family and as a head football coach, he’s taking care of like 180-plus players and staff. He is definitely someone I want to model my life after. He doesn’t have to talk about the Church all the time for us to know he’s a good person. It’s been so good for me. I’m very blessed to have a coach like that.”

Value of victory

What would another victory over Army on Saturday mean to Foulger and the Midshipmen?

It would mean a great deal, he said.

Along with being the biggest game of the year, Foulger and the Midshipmen will be wearing NASA-themed uniforms in honor of 54 U.S. Naval Academy graduates who went on to be astronauts. Foulger’s father and grandfather previously worked on the solid rocket motors for many of the space shuttles. He will also wear an old strategic command patch on his jersey that belongs to his grandfather, a retired major of the U.S. Air Force.

Navy revealed their NASA-themed uniforms for the December 10th game against Army. 54 U.S. Naval Academy graduates have gone on to be astronauts. pic.twitter.com/NS0AN8YD1l

— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) November 21, 2022

“We work so hard and give up so much to play football and to win games,” said Foulger, who hopes to one day fly helicopters for the Navy. “We are all invested in our own reasons and that is why we all play for each other. It’s never about hating the other team and it never has been. We do it for the men around us — our brotherhood.”

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