Dave Viger gets rare shot to fulfill Naval commitment, win spot with Jets

From the U.S. Naval Academy's perspective, he's an exemplary representative.

Academy grad ... all-star football player who earned invitations to the Hula Bowl and Blue-Gray game last season ... devoted, principled military man.

As far as the Navy is concerned, Dave Viger embodies its finest qualities, and, as such, merits special consideration.

As a result, when the New York Jets open training camp Wednesday in Hempstead, N.Y., Viger will be in attendance and working for a spot on the roster as a defensive lineman and long snapper. He's contesting for a position on the Jets because the Navy has assigned him to the team's home base, Hofstra University, as a ROTC recruiter.

Viger, a Las Vegan for the past two years, will work off his two-year postgraduate commitment to the Navy while pursuing a job with the Jets.

"I don't know if the Navy has ever done anything like this, at least recently," Viger said Monday before addressing the Green Valley High School football team in the school's weight room. "I really don't know how it happened and I really don't know what to say, other than maybe I just lucked out."

While the Navy appears to have bent over backward to assign Viger at or near the Jets' camp, the move could pay dividends for both parties.

"I think they realize it could be to their advantage as well," Viger said. "They know I'm going to play the role they want me to, and that I'll be on Hofstra's campus in my Navy uniform. It works out perfect for me and it could be good publicity for them."

When Viger received the news that he would be assigned to Hofstra, he was reluctant to make too much of it.

"They didn't publicize it and neither did I," he said. "Everything was kept pretty quiet, and I thought it was good that way just in case one of the bigwigs would hear about it and think I should be serving my commitment some other way."

While Viger will wear two hats at Hofstra, he will spend his most grueling hours inside a helmet with the word Jets stamped on it. At 6-foot-5 and 285 pounds, he will attempt to fill the team's need for a reserve lineman and snapper on punts.

"I think I've got a shot," he said. "I'm a person with commitment and I feel pretty good about trying out with the Jets. I like coach (Bill) Parcells and I think he likes me, although I know I have to do my part."

Viger surprised Parcells at the Jets' minicamp in May when he told him he would be available for training camp this season -- not two years down the road.

"I said to him, 'You're never going to believe this, but you've got me this year,'

"It doesn't matter to him that I'm in camp as a free agent."

Perhaps because of the lingering uncertainty regarding his post-graduate commitment, Viger, 23 years old and a native of San Diego, wasn't drafted despite his Hula Bowl and Blue-Gray honors. Nonetheless he was invited to try out for a team that made marked improvement last season, its first under Parcells.

"With a guy like Parcells, everyone gets a chance," Viger said, and that outlook played into his speech at Green Valley High, where a brother, Michael, is an incoming junior looking to make the Gators.

"The message in my speech is to stick with it," Viger said. "If there's one lesson I've learned, it's to keep plugging. It's not always the best player or the fastest player that makes it the farthest -- oftentimes it's the guy who has worked the hardest and hasn't given up."

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