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At Navy, Commitment Is for Meek
His high school's biggest rival, nearby Marcus High, featured a Navy commitment too. Fullback Adam Ballard said he got to know Meek when the two competed against each other at track meets.
"He was supposed to be in the same platoon as me at NAPS," Ballard said. "When he didn't show up for I-Day, and then after boot camp . . . I just figured he'd decided not to come."
  "They kept saying [Navy] was too good of an opportunity to pass up," Josh Meek says of his decision to re-apply to the academy. He has helped the Mids to a school-record 357.4 rushing yards per game. (U.s. Naval Academy) TOOLBOXCOMMENT |
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Meek's football career had an unusual start. He was 5-9 and 185 pounds when he was a freshman at Flower Mound. By the time he was a senior, he had grown to 6-1, 255, and had played every position along the offensive line, including tight end. He was named the team's most valuable player as a senior and chose Navy over offers from Army and Rice.
His introduction to Navy football was another challenge. Flower Mound had run its offense out of the shotgun formation. Navy's option-based offense is almost the exact opposite.
"It probably took me two years to understand this offense," Meek said. "Someone like [center] Antron [Harper], it took him maybe 10 minutes. But when [offensive line coach] Ken Niumatalolo started talking about the offense and the offensive line when I was a freshman, I thought he was speaking in Greek."
This season included a return to North Texas for Meek; Navy won, 74-62, in the highest-scoring non-overtime game in NCAA division I-A history. The offense's output that day was the good news. The bad news was that, to mark Meek's homecoming, his stepmother designed giant posters with Meek's likeness on them.
"Josh hates being in the spotlight," Laurie Meek said. "His personality really fits being on the offensive line; he doesn't want any glory. . . . He was a little concerned about the hoopla, but we told him this was for us, that we have to have a good time with our kids and he didn't have a choice."
