Roman Buchanan is one of the lucky ones.
When he talks to his father, Johnny, a 10-year Air Force veteran, he doesn’t hear horror stories. Most importantly, Johnny came home, and intact.
Johnny didn’t tell him stories of perilous danger, of nose dives and near misses.
Roman wonders, though.
“That was going to be me,” the South Alabama senior linebacker/safety said. “I would’ve been deployed five or six times a year. I wanted to be it all. I wanted to be the most elite soldier there is. I wanted to work up to the Green Berets.”
If only he didn’t find another profession to tackle.
And of all the South Alabama players traveling to Tucson to square off against Air Force in Friday’s Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl, perhaps none will be more excited than Buchanan.
He is a military guy, through and through.
He grew up right off a military base, the son of an Air Force pilot and civil servant. His best friend is in the Navy; another friend is thinking about joining the Air Force, and he’s helped her with the process.
If he wouldn’t have gotten the recruitment letters and calls from South Alabama coach Joey Jones, odds are, he would’ve walked into a different kind of recruitment office.
He still might.
Had Buchanan not received any football offers, he says, his plan was to become an army ranger. Now, armed with advanced football training, he hopes to become a tactical strength and conditioning coach. His preference: training soldiers.
Buchanan learned plenty of discipline from his father, and brought it to the football field, and that should serve him well.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned from being from a military family is that every little thing matters,” he said. “The little things, that’s who you are. That’s what you are. You have to take pride in every single thing you do. No matter what it is, do it the right way. You are what you do.”
It’s clear that the words are not lip service: Buchanan is a three-year starter and two-year team captain, given the special duty of wearing the No. 5 Jaguars jersey this season in honor of former USA running back Anthony Mostella, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2010.
Buchanan has 80 tackles this season, including nine for losses and an interception, after entering the season with 176 career tackles. Buchanan has made the switch from safety to the “stinger” linebacker position look easy; he had 12 tackles in a momentous season-opening upset of Mississippi State.
Buchanan credits his military upbringing for his on-field success.
“It’s really helped me as a football player,” he said. “I’ve always been big on the small details. Being a smaller linebacker, moving from safety, I feel like I showed I could do a lot of different things. I just pay attention to the details. I take pride in that.”
