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Zone Read: Nate Polk – A Call Far Greater Than Football

Arizona Sports News online

Winning a high school football state championship is one of the greatest accomplishments for any prep athlete.

Winning four of them is essentially unheard of.

Nate Polk raised four straight gold balls as a standout 3-star safety at Saguaro High School.

After playing three years at Air Force, he’s serving an even greater purpose – for his country.

Recently, “Zone Read” caught up with Polk (Class of 2019) to reminisce a little about the #SagU days, Academy life, getting engaged, and what his bright future holds.

Besides those four championships, what do you remember most about your time at Saguaro playing for those incredible teams? “Honestly, it’s just all the guys and the brotherhood we had. It was something different, even in college, we had a brotherhood on the football team but I felt like Saguaro football, every single person was bought in. We all just had that common goal of winning and we all pushed ourselves to be better. 

“We were competing every single day and it brought out the best of us.”

Those teams didn’t just have a bunch of ballers, but so many interesting, different personalities on both sides of the ball. Who do you still keep in touch with? “I’m still super close to Jayden Swink, Brayden Green, Connor Soelle. We still talk to this day. Play video games with each other, catch up. When we’re all back home, we all link up  – so it’s awesome.”

You had several offers – Oregon, Arizona, Louisville, Utah, among others. Why was Air Force ultimately the right fit for you? “Initially, I got the offer and told my dad. He said, ‘That’s awesome but you’re not going to go to school there. You’re going to go to a bigger school.’

Then, [former Saguaro teammate] Clay Randall and I went to a football camp [at the AFA]. I loved the campus. I thought it was awesome. They sold it really well. It’s an incredible degree. Football only lasts so long but you do have that option to go to the NFL.

“We did an official visit there with my whole family and my dad’s whole perspective changed. He thought it was amazing.

“It was also something bigger than me, bigger than just football. Serving your country is something that not everybody can say they can do. I thought it was a really unique opportunity, so I went with it.”

Your older brother Ray, who was an incredible player at Brophy and went on to play college ball at Colorado, is now a green beret in the Army. How much influence did he have in your decision to attend the Academy? “He’s killing it. He’s a dog. He’s definitely someone I look up to. Me and my younger brothers growing up, we always looked up to him. We were always like, ‘We want to follow that path.’

‘[After a short stint in the NFL], he went into the Army and that was really cool. He’s just a super humble guy. That did have some influence. I talked to him before I committed and he said, ‘Make sure it’s something you want to do because it’s a different college lifestyle. It’s not going to be like going to Arizona State…it’s a lot more disciplined.'”

The demands are certainly much different than a traditional college. Take us through a typical day, during the football season, at Air Force. “I’ll start with freshman year because freshman year is definitely the hardest because you’re a freshman. They call you a “doolie.” You’re not really associated with the upperclassmen. You can’t be friends with thm because it’s fratenizing. You can actually get in trouble for that.

“If you’re an athlete, especially for football, you have all your classes in the morning. So, freshman year, you wake up around 6:30 to do some military stuff for an hour. From there, you’re basically running to class and you have to hold your backpack in your hand. You have to greet upperclassmen every time you pass them, which is a lot.

“You have class until around 11:15. From there, you have about an hour and half military class with your squadron and you’re other peers going over lessons and core values from the Air Force. From there, you go immediately to practice, get changed up. We have meetings. You get treatment before if you need it. We go lift for about an hour and then it’s off to practice.

“By the time we’re done with practice, we got dinner, which was super nice. At that point, it’s pretty close to 7:30. You get back to your room, do homework if you need it, study. Then, lights are out.

“I wasn’t going to bed until 11:00 or midnight. There were some late nights – even like 1:00AM, I’m [still] trying to finish an essay. I’d even try to wake up in the morning and try to knock some stuff out before class, but even then, it was like, ‘I need my sleep.’ It was rough. It’s mentally and physically super draining.”

When you say, “Greet the upperclassmen.” What exactly does that entail? “If you pass them in the halls, or outside, you’re supposed to stop and go to attention. You’re just standing still, and then you look at them and you have to greet them with, ‘Good morning, sir or ma’am.’ Then you have to say their full name and their cadet rank.”

I’ve talked to a few other AZHS football alums who attended the AFA and they also spoke about how taxing it all can be. Was there ever a time where you thought The Academy might break you, or you thought it may not be the place for you? “Yeah, I kinda thought, during my freshman year, I tore my ACL, my MCL and my hamstring on like the third play of our first scrimmage. I was like, ‘It’s not a huge deal. Injuries happen. I’ll come back.’ But that was during COVID – towards the end of COVID.

“Just dealing with the injury during COVID – having to wear the mask. I was isolated. It was definitely, mentally, super hard for me. That was kind of the point where I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is it.’ But I kept reaching out to friends and family. Praying. I kind of just stuck with it. It definitely gets better after your freshman year.”

Was it hard Nate to concentrate on playing high-level, Mountain West football, considering all the additional academic and military cadet requirements at the AFA? “It was. It definitely moreso was a learning curve on how to time manage. That’s a huge thing there. So, I tried to get my homework out of the way because I wanted football to work out for me. I’d be watching film late at night, taking notes in my notepad for film the next day. 

“It was definitely a huge learning curve with time management academics and football, and all the military duties, as well…you get thrown into the fire and…knowing you’re not going to be perfect in every way – whether it’s academics, football, military, but it’s how you bounce back from it.

“It’s dealing with failures and learning from them.”

I remember talking to someone who was at AFA and they told me about how they Academy made you, basically, survive out in the forest for a weekend with a handful of other cadets. Did you have any experiences like that? “Yes. I believe it was in summer going into your sophomore year, they change it for every class, but ours was like a 44-hour challenge where you’re thrown on base and you have to hit all these mile markers, track where you’re at [in a specific time]. 

“I just remember sleeping on base in the open fields, or in the woods, and it’s pitch black. We have no clue where we’re going or anything, but it works out. You lean on the other people that you’re with to figure it out. At the end, you end up back at the [Academy] gate at 4:00AM. It was pretty draining.”

They’re trying to weed you out as freshmen, right? “Oh, one hundred percent. They’re trying to see if you can make it academically, and all the military stuff – if you can be respectful, have that discipline and time management.”

You medically retired from football at the AFA but, more importantly, earned your degree in business management, and now you’re a contracting officer living in Boise. Tell us more about your job. “So, I do percurment for the Air Force. So, it’s basically buying stuff for the base. Any types of commodities, services, or construction projects will come to our office. We’ll work the requirement, reach out to contractors, see who can fulfill that contract or that need and then we issue them that contract in our office.”

So, you’re engaged? “I am.”

Tell me more about your fiance. “We met my junior year at the Academy. She followed me on Instagram. I waited a little bit, saw she liked one of my posts…so I reached out to her. At the time, she had a close childhood friend that coached in Colorado. So, she came down and we met. 

“She came back out for Ring Dance, which is a dance during your junior year where you can by an Academy ring and there’s a big party for it, so she was my date for that, and kind of started dating from there. We’ve been together since.

“I popped the question in Hawaii.”

Last question. I know you were in Maui. Did you take the Road to Hana? “(laughing) We did. It was a full 13-hour trip. It was awesome. It was so beautiful. We saw so many waterfalls, the Garden of Eden. 

“The road was a little sketchy because it was a lot of one way driving. So, she was yelling at me when I was hanging off of a cliff trying to let another car pass. It was awesome.

“I thought we were going off the mountain for sure.”

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

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