Perkins: ‘I couldn’t have ever imagined it’
Navy senior relishing his role as captain amid difficult season
Navy senior Jackson Perkins never dreamed of this.
He was a basketball player, and his goal throughout childhood was to play college hoops. As a high school freshman at Barrington High in Illinois in 2013, a 6-foot-6 self-described “human pipe cleaner,” Perkins anticipated as much.
He played out-of-season on an AAU team coached by Frank Kaminsky Jr., the father of former Wisconsin All-American and National Player of the Year Frank Kaminsky III. Football was just another sport he played.
Fast f orward to the present and Perkins, who eventually bought into his coach’s hype after switching from tight end to defensive end early in his high school football career, has a hard time believing where he is.
“I couldn’t have ever imagined it,” he said, “but I’m super excited to be where I’m at.”
Perkins recently recalled a conversation with a friend before he left Barrington for the Naval Academy in the summer of 2017.
“He was like, ‘Hey, man, I wish
you the best of luck. I just want you to know I can see you being the captain of the team. That’s just you,’ ” Perkins said. “First of all, I was like, yeah, shut up. You’re getting all soft on me.
“But I never imagined — if you’d asked me sophomore year of high school, I’d be the starting defensive end for Navy, a captain, playing Army, I’d say: What the hell is the Naval Academy? And second of all, I’d say I have no shot at being a captain of a team like that.”
In late August, Perkins was selected by his peers to be one of three team captains, alongside Cameron Kinley and Billy Honaker, for the 2020 season. Amid a pandemic that has altered every aspect of daily life for a football team, it’s an honor that Perkins has taken head on.
“Leadership is easy when stuff’s going good,” he said, “but you see who the real leaders are when stuff start going bad. And that’s not me saying I’m a real leader because I’m an amateur at best, but you know, this season obviously hasn’t gone the way we want it to go. We’ve had a really up and down season … but one thing hasn’t changed and that’s the effort and the mindset of our team. That’s all I can ask for.”
Keeping a team focused on the task at hand while the many joys of being part of a football team have been taken away by the pandemic — team meals, celebrating after games, family and friends watching from the stands — has made this group of captains all the more important.
Team bonding, which Perkins said he’s “huge” on, has been difficult to do with the safety protocols in place. He said it’s taken some creativity to get that necessary bonding experience, but Perkins credits the senior class for finding ways.
“There’s so many different factors that it’s hard to just focus on what we need to do,” he said. “You think about social distancing, you think about wearing your mask, you think about whether you’re going to play this week or not, if you’re not going to play when is it going to get postponed to. It’s all stuff you wouldn’t normally think about in a normal season. As a leader, you want to just make sure the guys are focused and just ready to play each game.”
In the eyes of striker John Marshall, Perkins has played a very important role amid this strange roller-coaster season.
“Jackson is the guy you look to get your spirits up and keep the juices flowing. High energy in practice and games,” he said. “Just the kind of guy that rubs off on you.”
Even by the time he arrived at the Naval Academy in 2017, Perkins wasn’t necessarily destined to become a two-year starter and team captain. The lanky defensive end needed to pack on the pounds as a plebe, a season during which Perkins was often pushed around at practice by the heavier and stronger offensive linemen.
“I don’t want to say I wrote [Perkins] off back then. But my first impression was this guy has an awful lot of work to put in if he wants to play D-line at the college level,” senior teammate Tobe Okafor recalled.
Understandably, Perkins saw no varsity action that 2017 season. However, by the following fall, Perkins had worked his way onto special teams, saw action in five games and recorded a pair of tackles and quarterback hurry against Lehigh. He showed promise that came to fruition the following season when he started all 10 games in which he played at defensive end as a junior.
Throughout it all, though, Perkins displayed the captain-like attributes that would catch the eye of teammates and coaches.
“Jackson is the most unselfish guy on our whole football team,” defensive coordinator Brian Newberry said. “He doesn’t care if he makes the play or someone else does. But he understands that, as long as he does his job, plays are going to come to him or someone else. He embodies everything this program is about.”
Said senior linebacker Diego Fagot: “The dude is humble, to a fault. He really does get just as excited by spilling the ball to me so I can make the play as he does by making the play himself. Jackson is a servant leader. I think of the way he is always so ready to help other people out. It makes me play harder behind him.”
Perkins, now weighing in at 257 pounds, has started every game this season and registered 21 tackles, including 12 solo and 2½ for loss. He was crucial to Navy’s stunning comeback against Tulane, during which the Mids shut out the Green Wave in the second half and scored 27 unanswered points to complete the greatest comeback in program history.
Navy’s defense turned the tide in the second half with Perkins leading the way. He was selected as Defensive Player of the Game by the coaching staff as a result.
“This team is something special. We may not be the most talented team Navy has ever had, but the fight is there,” Perkins said. “Any other team with no wins, you’re down 24 at the halftime… There wasn’t even a rah-rah speech. Just every guy… you just looked in their eyes and they were like, yeah, we’re not giving up. And you saw what happened. It was honestly just pure fight.”