My experience with Al Cantello, United States Naval Academy Coach from 1963-2018

It is entirely possible to be a tough leader without being a bully. I have no way to say if the description of this coach is accurate, but if it is, he sounds like a bully. I have had coaches and superiors inside and outside of the military who would come down hard on screwups, but the difference is that they did not show disrespect for the person and you understood that they were concerned for your development. I appreciated the discipline and these leaders were generally well respected and liked. Finally, I would agree that it would lend more weight to your position if you were to identify yourself by name when making such serious accusations.

Agreed. I attended the SERE school, where the training purpose and expectation was that you be put in an extreme environment in order to prepare you for hypothetically caught by enemy forces. This training had (1) a specific purpose (2) regulated and approved (3) had oversight. And even in the SERE school environment, there were ways where the "Trainers" could have been went out of their bounds and been bullies.

In any environment, there are people who abuse their power. In the United States Military, supposedly the best military in the world, these people should be held to account.

As far as your last point, maybe, maybe not. The OP has already stated that he has gone on the record in other areas. This is an anonymous message board, and there are pros and cons to it being so. Maybe the OP is soft, maybe he is scared, maybe both. I don't know and I don't care, tbh, and such conversations cloud the big picture here

I cannot speak to the validity of the original post cause I was not there and know nothing about the situation. If true, sorry that you have had to go through that - I cannot imagine how difficult that was mentally then and all these years since.

What I can say is that Pete Schuder should be embarrassed for his posts in this thread. You're his friend so you state with absolute CERTAINTY that the OP is a liar? And you don't even consider that he may have acted differently to you (a peer and friend) vs someone he viewed as subordinate (an athlete, especially one who was struggling)? By your logic, if you were not personally witness to any event it didn't happen.

What a joke.

My lord, move on. No one cares.

I get the impression O.P. did not believe Officer & a Gentleman film treatment was for him. By O.P.'s comment, stating coach's behavior is outdated implied he or she knew combat would never occur. No one in uniform can be certain they will not experience combat. Look at J.F.K. If I recall correctly, J.F.K. had a desk job in Maryland. J.F.K. had a messy entanglement with a possible (likely) Nazi spy. If J.F.K. were not Joe Kennedy's son, J.F.K. would have been fired or suffered Court Martial. Due to being Joe Kennedy's son, J.F.K. was given a second chance, commander of a patrol torpedo watercraft, one of the most dangerous jobs at the time for a Navy commissioned officer. An ex-Marine coach yelled at O.P. I am sure O.P. could have walked on at U. of Maryland. I am not saying people do not cross the line, I am saying O.P. looks pathetic starting a thread about it.

he crossed many lines many times, but it's exactly your mindset that allowed him to stay in power for so long and to be rewarded for his behavior. But the truth is that it was not his job to take it upon himself to act as a military trainer in ways that were not approved by his Chain of Command. His job was be a college coach.

Call me pathetic. Call me anything you want. I'm not wrong

As a former Naval Academy midshipman, here is my 2 cents:

I had always wanted to go to the Academy, and hearing that Coach Cantello “had a spot for me on the team” as a walk-on, was the icing on the cake. It was, however, a promise he failed to keep.

Within the first week of Plebe Summer, Coach Cantello told us that there was nothing guaranteed and that we would have to prove ourselves for a spot on the team/roster.

Mind you I was fast enough to walk on but slow enough to truly have no business being on a D1 team.

This was a hard pill to swallow. Plebe Summer is the basic training for the Naval Academy, so yeah, it sucks. I had looked at the distance running team as a place to get away and chase some of my personal goals. To find out that it was not the way it was “sold” to me beforehand caused a near crisis of me questioning if I even wanted to stay.
I did stay. I did my best to keep up on the team, but let’s be honest, I was slow. I got “cut” at the start of indoor track season. “Cantello doesn’t cut anyone, you cut yourself” is the word on the street. His official words were “clear out your locker” so yeah, I can see the ambiguity in that. I was told by teammates that I could come back, but I doubted myself.

I did my best to continue running. I amped my mileage and training up hoping that I could come back when I felt “ready” to rejoin the team.

In that time I developed an eating disorder and discovered I had a mild heart condition. I literally went out for one of my runs one day and made it halfway through and just walked back the the Yard defeated. I stopped running the next day and have not trained seriously since. It was that abrupt of a burnout.

My own demons surfaced around that time and I struggled with the reasons for why I was at the Academy in the first place. I developed some severe mental illness as well that plagued me for YEARS after I left the Academy.

I ended up leaving right at the start of Youngster (sophomore) year.

I will say that Coach Cantello’s “promise” to me of a spot on the team was misleading and partially to blame for some of the challenges I dealt with, but now, decade and a half later, I don’t hold any ill will or feelings toward him. In fact, I’m thankful for what I’ve been through. I’ve taken ownership of the road that I had to walk being a failed midshipman and a person struggling with severe mental health issues. That ownership has made me stronger.

I had my own demons that I have faced since I left. It’s been a really challenging road, but I’ve done it. I’m in an amazing place in life, happier than I’ve ever been.

I do think the environment Coach Cantello created was toxic, yes. I also think that’s a big shame, because there are a number of individuals I can think of who would have been great runners if his coaching was different.

I will say, though, that the season I spent running with the XC team has some really special memories for me. I had no business being on a D1 team. I am thankful for the opportunity to even have been given the chance.

In the past, the Academy has held a lot of painful memories and disappointment. Feelings of failure.
I am now able to find the nuance in all of it. I live close to the Academy now, I visit from time to time. Thankful for the good and the bad. Finding some peace after everything.

🤷‍♂️. That’s all we can do right?

Rojo should do some journalism here. If you have the name and graduation year of this person, you can easily look up the roster and contact his teammates to see if they saw Cantello push him down.

As it stands, the OP says other midshipmen were present when he was shoved, but he doesn't remember who......You don't remember your own teammates? With an experience so traumatizing, you don't remember talking about it to your friends who saw it?

BTW in the summer of 2003 when the alleged shove occurred, Cantello would have been 73 years old. Though he once broke the world record in the javelin, he was 5'7 in his prime and probably 5'5 at the age of 73. The OP said this 73 year old at 5'5 is a "physically menacing figure" ??

Completely false. The long overcoat has been worn at West Point since the 1820s; last I checked, the Wizard of Oz came out around 1940. The Union Army wore almost identical overcoats during the Civil War during the winter months.

great post and thank you for sharing. I definitely agree that finding peace is necessary, and I believe accountability is part of finding peace.

Yeah, he loved "mock executions." He's cut someone on the spot, but there was this unspoken knowledge that the person could come back the same day.

This happened at the first practice for xc in my sophomore year. Anyone who he didn't speak to over the summer, he cut over the summer (I was lucky enough that he had called me). Nevermind the fact that there was never any communication from anyone that we should contact him over the summer. One of the people he cut came back the next day ended up being a top 5 xc runner. But what if he had taken Cantello at his word?

Not to mention that the men's team would bark at the people who had quit or were cut, not to mention bark at the women's team (and this doesn't include Cantello's own remarks about the women's team, which were often loud enough for both the women and the women's coach to hear)

that's what I said and that's the truth

yes yes well played well played

This guy couldn't coach a rat to eat cheese.

I agree 100%. This is a claim that a coach assaulted his athlete. If rojo has the name of the athlete, they should contact his teammates and seek the truth.

If they aren't interested in the truth, they should delete the thread.