Join us for an inspiring conversation with Tom Lough and Craig Gilbert, two Olympians, and West Point graduates, who share their journeys of athletic and military excellence. They discuss the unique bonds among West Point Olympians, initiatives to support current cadets, and their ongoing contributions to the academy and nation. Highlighting the challenges of balancing military commitments with Olympic dreams, they share personal anecdotes and celebrate the spirit of lesser-known sports, looking forward to future Olympic victories.
Join us for an inspiring journey as we sit down with Tom Lough class of and Craig Gilbert class of ‘78, two Olympians, who share their remarkable paths to both athletic and military excellence!
Tom, discovered modern pentathlon at the academy, leading him to compete in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. His career includes service in Vietnam, Korea, and Germany, earning him a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
Craig, transitioned from football and basketball to team handball while at West Point, and became a member of the 1984 Olympic Handball team. His Army service includes a deployment to Afghanistan.
We explore the unique bonds formed among West Point Olympians and their ongoing contributions to the academy and the nation. The two discuss the influence of West Point, the Olympic display in Arvin Gym, and their involvement with the US Olympians and Paralympians Association. These efforts help maintain a strong support network for current cadets, ensuring the legacy of excellence and service continues.
We also touch on the challenges West Point cadets and graduates face balancing military commitments with Olympic dreams, showcasing their remarkable resilience and dedication. Through personal anecdotes, including the story of Captain Sammy Sullivan, we highlight the support needed from the academy and donors and the inspiration these cadets provide to the West Point community. We wrap up with a celebration of team spirit, expressing our hopes for future victories, particularly against Navy, as we look forward to the Paris 2024 and LA 2028 Olympics.
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Key Quote:
“In a way, we can regard our West Point graduation as the achievement or the final step in a long, arduous journey and then we springboard into the future, but then the opening ceremony of the Olympics is just the beginning of a fabulous competitive experience. You see, that was still ahead of us, our challenge was still ahead of us.”
- Tom Lough
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(00:38) Journey to West Point
(03:12) Olympic Aspirations and Achievements
(07:03) Creating Support Systems and Finding Inspirations
(11:14) West Point's Legacy and Influence
(23:48) West Point Olympians and Their Contributions
(31:07) Challenges and Support for West Point Athletes
(42:31) The Role of Donors and Personal Achievements
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0:00:02.2 Announcer: Welcome to the WPAOG Podcast. On this episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Tom Lough, Class of 1964, and Craig Gilbert, Class of 1978, two distinguished West Point graduates and Olympians. Tom, a 1968 modern pentathlon competitor, and Craig, a team handball player, share their remarkable journeys of balancing athletic and military excellence. We'll explore the unique bonds among West Point Olympians, their contributions to the academy, and the challenges of pursuing Olympic dreams while serving their country. Join us for an inspiring discussion on resilience, dedication, and the enduring legacy of West Point athletes. Please enjoy this episode with our host, Jamie Enos.
0:00:54.7 Jamie Enos: Tom and Craig, thank you so much for coming on the WPAOG Podcast today.
0:01:00.9 Tom Lough: Well, it's great to be here.
0:01:01.6 Craig Gilbert: I'm honored to be here. Thank you, Jamie.
0:01:04.3 Jamie Enos: So, gentlemen, you are both Olympians, graduates of West Point. An amazing accomplishment on all sides of the house here. Tom, your background is incredible. Serving with the 101st, you were shot down during Vietnam, just insane. Craig, you're a retired lieutenant colonel. The service to the country is just commendable. So I wanted to just point that out for our listeners one more time, and before we get into this. So both of you, how did you even think about West Point, Tom? How did you think about coming here?
0:01:39.3 Tom Lough: Well, I came here to West Point right out of high school. I had no plans for how to finance my way through college, and I just learned about West Point from reading a biography of Dwight Eisenhower, probably in my sophomore year, and got interested in it. And when I realized that my parents were not as wealthy as I had hoped they would be, [chuckle] it turned out that was a pretty wise choice because we didn't really have much money for tuition anywhere else.
0:02:09.3 Jamie Enos: And, Craig, how about you? How did you get to West Point?
0:02:11.7 Craig Gilbert: Actually, I think the first time I thought about West Point was, I was at a Girl Scout meeting that my mother had in an elementary school, and I opened up a West Point book, and I think I saw people or West Pointers from 1930. So that... Was that your class, Tom? I'm not sure.
[laughter]
0:02:33.2 Tom Lough: Oh, man, you don't get any respect from these younger kids, I tell you.
0:02:37.6 Jamie Enos: The Corps has. I feel like we've already started.
0:02:40.7 Tom Lough: Exactly.
0:02:41.5 Craig Gilbert: So I saw that book. I also was an Eagle Scout, I had played football. My one sister went to Cornell, the other went to Alfred University. I knew I wanted to be an engineer. And I also knew I'd probably be screwing around, so West Point would be a good place. I came up to West Point, I fell in love with the seven-story gym that was there. And that's where I ended up going.
0:03:12.5 Jamie Enos: And how did you get interested in handball?
0:03:15.6 Craig Gilbert: Okay. So I played intercollegiate basketball and football at West Point. So my freshman year, I played JV basketball, and I played football for three years at West Point. I separated my shoulder in the off-season for going into my senior year, I couldn't play spring football. One of my classmates that also was on the basketball team and football team, he was no longer playing either sport, and he was playing team handball. Team handball were the national champions at the time, the collegiate national champions. I shouldn't have probably tried out. I tried out, and I made the team. After I made the team, I did well and I was named to the junior national team, and it just exploded from there.
0:04:06.6 Jamie Enos: Tom, you started with triathlon at West Point. Tell us how you got involved in that.
0:04:11.9 Tom Lough: Well, I backed into modern pentathlon through West Point. It was actually a springboard for it, because when I went to West Point I wasn't really much of an athlete. I was desperate to get on the athletic table so I could eat enough food in the dining hall, and I tried out for this team and that team, the other team, I kept getting cut. And I ended up in a club sport called triathlon, which at that time was running, swimming, and pistol shooting. I could run fairly well, I could swim barely, and I learned to shoot the pistol and ended up being a fairly good triathlon athlete and got onto the athletic tables for triathlon. But another thing that happened to me during my sophomore year or yearling year at West Point, they started up the fencing program once again. And that's when they told me that, "If you do triathlon and fencing, all you have to do is learn horseback riding, and you would be in this Olympic sport called modern pentathlon." What? Never heard of that. No one has ever heard of modern pentathlon. Well, it turned out that I didn't know it at the time, but from 1912 to 1952, just about every Olympic slot in modern pentathlon had been taken by West Pointers.
0:05:27.5 Tom Lough: And then what apparently happened was in early 1950s, when they shut down the riding program and the fencing program, the West Pointers doing modern pentathlon fell off to nothing. And so here I come along in 1960, not knowing a thing about any of this, and everything starts up again. So I thought, "Okay, I'm on board." And it turned out I was able to come to the attention of Department of the Army Sports, and get evaluated after graduation and have some training time available, and qualified for the trials in 1968 and made the team. If you'd asked me in 1964 when I graduated, you'll be marking the opening ceremony of the Olympics in four years. [chuckle]
0:06:13.1 Jamie Enos: Had you even been out of the United States?
0:06:15.9 Tom Lough: [chuckle] Oh, yeah. All cadets get to travel, of course. And I had been out of the States a couple of times, mostly to Germany by that time. I also had overseas tours after graduation in Korea and then later in Vietnam. But I'd been, a few other countries like that. But international travel wasn't unfamiliar, it was just that I just couldn't imagine being on the Olympic team. That was the main thing.
0:06:49.5 Jamie Enos: Right, right. And representing Team USA, right? Elevating to that high level, I assume.
0:06:55.4 Tom Lough: Yeah. Yeah. Where did that come from? I don't know.
[chuckle]
0:07:00.8 Jamie Enos: Craig, what about you? Did you do anything over the summer that had you traveling or even with the handball team here at West Point before the Olympic platform? Because you were already on the radar before graduating.
0:07:12.2 Craig Gilbert: So, actually, it's interesting. I was on CTLT over in Germany in 1976, and my dad had gotten tickets for everything in Montreal, and he came back and said, "Craig, you got to see this game, team handball. It's amazing. I think you'd really like it. You've got these six-foot-seven Russians that are just smashing people around." And so it ended up that 1976 was really the first time I even thought about team handball. And my friend Mike Slotnick, who played basketball and football with me as a freshman, had now been on the team handball at West Point that were the national collegiate champions. And he's the one that encouraged me. And one of the things that is so amazing about all of the Olympic athletes is, we don't do this by ourselves. We do this with the support of many people. It could be coaches, it could be family members, and it could be just peers that you're working with. And just interestingly enough, two years ago, the Olympic committee changed the motto of the Olympics from 'Citius, Altius, Fortius', faster, higher, stronger, to 'Citius, Altius, Fortius-Communitaire', which is faster, higher, stronger-together.
0:08:40.1 Craig Gilbert: And to me, there's a lot of connotations of what together could mean, but to me, it's we do that because of coaches, we do that because of people around us. And I have to just commend many people that were around me. My coach, Jim Thome, who was the team handball coach and later a junior national coach, and also did a lot of things with team handball. My tactical officer, Pat Benton, actually...
0:09:12.9 Tom Lough: Your tac?
0:09:13.5 Craig Gilbert: My Tac, yes. My tactical officer, Pat Benton, I remember standing on the stoops of old south and he says, "Craig, you're gonna be in the Olympics." And I'm like, "Yeah, right." And four years later, actually more, seven years later 'cause we didn't qualify for the '80 games, but in '84 we ended up, I ended up in opening ceremonies and became an Olympian.
0:09:40.4 Tom Lough: Wow, that's so cool.
0:09:43.8 Jamie Enos: I think it's really...
0:09:44.4 Craig Gilbert: I can remember...
0:09:45.6 Jamie Enos: A really important point, where you talk about that togetherness, right? Because it isn't just the athlete or even the athlete and the coach, especially now as the Olympics are even more evolved. Nutritionists, and you have sports recovery and sports psychologists. And whether you're on and off the field, that's a different type of trainer and training, and it's all collaborative effort... You to that point of maximum participation, that teamwork. Do you think here at West Point we have that same model? In the way you go through Beast Barracks and you get up to that cadet in the red sash point of your career as a cadet, do you think that's mirrored here?
0:10:27.4 Craig Gilbert: Without a doubt. The foundation that West Point gives you to experience, not experience, but be able to thrive in just about any environment, is monumental. We are the premier leadership academy in the world for a reason, and it gives you the opportunity to be able to handle pressure, to be able to take, do things that are required. I also think that when Tom competed back in the 1930s, as well as... Oh, no, sorry, it was 1968, I'm sorry.
0:11:04.9 Tom Lough: Don't forget that. I may be old, but I'm not that old.
0:11:09.3 Craig Gilbert: We were all amateurs. The Olympics and sports now have morphed into something that is really hard for me to fathom. And it... That's enough to say on that. But we did not have that support system like that. I did through team handball, but most Olympians are individual Olympians. And they did it because of the fortitude and they did it because of the drive and perseverance that we had, especially, the legacy West Pointers that we have that were in the '50s, and '40s, and '30s, and '20s. Those folks, most of them all had long careers in military, I don't remember what the numbers are, but out of our 90 I think we have, I think the number was 34 generals, 25 colonels. And it just keeps going on because of that drive and whatever, blah, blah, blah.
0:12:09.3 Tom Lough: Yeah, I'd like to return to that, too, because speaking personally, and I think for several other West Point Olympians as well, that we derive a lot of our inspiration from the academy as a springboard to anything we were able to accomplish athletically. And I think Craig's point about not being by ourselves, that we were supported by coaches and team members and family members and service members. I remember when I made the team, I got communication from people all over the army once the announcement was made in The Army Times. Congratulations, we are all proud you're representing the US Army in the water pentathlon for 1968 in Mexico City. '68, you get that correct? [chuckle] But I think it's so important that if there's any cadets listening, that maybe we have an idea here that, yeah, we have 90 or so West Pointers who made the Olympic team, and that might be inspirational for them to think about becoming Olympians. But let's look at a greater thing, a greater idea or broader idea, maybe.
0:13:12.5 Jamie Enos: So you get to this point where now you're competing in the Olympics. That is so inspiring, not only to just all Americans, but specifically through cadets that are going to experience the same education, the same training, the same leadership experience, that idea of building teams and how to tolerate stress. How do you perceive your activities in the Olympics as inspiring cadets?
0:13:39.4 Tom Lough: Well, I hope that some of our achievements are good for athletic inspiration, but I hope there will be more general inspiration. Any field of endeavor that they try, I'd like to encourage cadets to aim for levels of excellence that they don't even dream of, because when I graduated from West Point, I never dreamed that I would be in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and representing the United States. And that was just astounding to me. And if cadets could have a similar mindset for whatever they're trying to do, that would be a fabulous byproduct of all of our collective efforts. I was at the academy recently for my 60th class reunion, and part of the time we were there was during the week of cadet project presentations. And I want to tell you that I was so impressed by the quality and the diversity and the scope and the imagination, creativity, the depth of the cadet presentations for their projects. I think our academy and our country is in good hands with this crop of graduating classes we have lined up, and I hope that West Point Olympians can, in some way, help with the general inspiration for them and for the classes to come.
0:15:04.3 Jamie Enos: So one way we do that is we have a huge display in Arvin Gym of Olympians and their events that they competed in, and we do a little bit of reunions with them. I know you all get along and get out together outside of anything even formalized. That's why Craig is over here giving you a couple little elbows, virtually, as we record the podcast. So can you talk about some of those experiences that you still have together as Olympians that have graduated from West Point? You have that Long Gray Line bond and then you've got this Olympic bond as well. So can you just tell me how that ties together?
0:15:43.8 Tom Lough: Yeah, I think the first recent... Well, wasn't a recent, bonding we had was way back in the 1990s when Colonel Guy Troy helped organize a halftime gathering for any Olympians in the area. We probably had 30 or 40 Olympians from many different sports that came to West Point, stood out on the football field for halftime for some recognition. And then about 10 or 15 years later, Colonel Troy also organized another halftime ceremony for just West Point Olympians. And I think we had, what, Craig? About 8 or 10 of us show up for that one. And that was very fun, inspiring to me. I was just wondering, we didn't get a chance to interact with the cadets, but that was the, at least the beginning of some sort of initiative for West Point Olympians. And since then, we've added to different... Added different projects along the way, including the room of The Hotel Thayer that's decorated now. Craig and his wife Gretchen helped to design the decor and then to add to the artifacts and the exhibits. And then Colonel Troy and others were instrumental with setting up the archive that's in Arvin Gym that was inaugurated a year or so ago.
0:16:58.6 Craig Gilbert: One of the things that both Tom and I have been involved with the US Olympians and Paralympians Association over... For me, it's 10 years now. For Tom, it is probably...
0:17:14.9 Tom Lough: About 40.
0:17:15.0 Craig Gilbert: About 40 years. I would have to say that what Tom has done over those 40 years, he is the person that brings together 1968 Olympic team and has his reunions. And he has been a leader and a spark plug, not only for 1968, but he's been honored by the US Olympic Committee with the highest award for someone supporting the Olympic movement. He has been hog-tailing myself and my wife to do the work at The Hotel Thayer executive suite, which if you get a chance ever to go there, at least look at the plaque outside it. It's very inspirational. He also encouraged me, as well as Guy Troy, to participate. And I would have to say that over the last eight years, West Pointers have had more influence, at least on college campuses, for supporting Olympic and soon to be probably Paralympic athletes that are alumni. And I think that is because of not only the drive and dedication, but the love that Tom has for the Olympic movement, for West Point, for America in general.
0:18:46.0 Tom Lough: Well, thank you. It's been a team effort, I'll tell you that. And it's been a real privilege to work with you, Craig, and our other 15 or 16 living Olympians and our Paralympian that we identified just recently. And I think we have a good prospect for going forward with everything because of the recent initiatives that West Point has started now to raise the cadet awareness of West Point Olympians legacy through some additional information in the new edition of Bugle notes and through some of the activities through the West Point Oral History Center. So I think we've got some good things going and we look forward to additional projects that we can cook up together and see what we can do, work them up.
0:19:35.9 Jamie Enos: And that's what I think is such a great opportunity with this podcast in particular. It's not only to former standouts here at West Point and army officers that I get to interview, but we can add on the layer of former athletes and Olympians and current, always current Olympians, never former. I learned that lesson in the pre. Just everybody is aware, they're always Olympians.
0:20:00.9 Tom Lough: There you go.
0:20:01.0 Jamie Enos: But to Olympians, and also continuing service to the nation through the Olympics, through the Paralympic committees. And our mission here at AOG of staying the most connected alumni body of the world, I think the two of you do a great job of doing that, of keeping the Olympic athletes from West Point connected and making sure that everybody... When we mentioned that Captain Sammy Sullivan was going to be in the Paris Olympics, the first thing Craig said was, "Congratulations. That's amazing. We have another one. Make sure she knows I'm gonna be there, so she'll have everything and anything she ever needs. I will help her." And I think that's just one of many examples that we could go into of how you support each other, but also look for inspirational moments for current cadets to continue their careers not only in athletics, as Tom has mentioned, but as they graduate and become those leaders of character that we're aiming for. So let's talk about...
0:20:56.3 Tom Lough: And I want to make sure AOG understands, too, I think you do, that Craig and all the West Point Olympians, myself included of course, stand ready to help in any way we can to help you achieve your mission of becoming the most connected alumni organization in the world. And if we can do that while we're helping raise the cadets' awareness and inspiring them to greater achievements, hey, we're on board.
0:21:24.2 Jamie Enos: Yeah, well, that's why we appreciate having you on today, for sure, 'cause that's what we're doing through this podcast. Well, let's shift a little bit. I want to talk about...
0:21:31.9 Craig Gilbert: So, can I just add one thing, Jamie, on this? So over the last five years, I've been on... Well, I guess it's the last two years, I've been on the executive committee of the United States Olympians and Paralympians Association, which is probably similar to the AOG, one of the most elite organizations in the world of individuals. However, the Olympic Committee does not do a good job with people after they have graduated or not graduated, but have competed. So you've got the highs and then you've got the lows on people that have spent 7, 10 years of their lives, and now they may not have that. Also inspired by AOG, is we've worked very hard to change the model of the United States Olympians and Paralympians Association and have reorganized that into a alumni, more of a college-centric alumni organization. So modeling after what the AOG has done where, and how to bring it together so people can actually benefit from that. So I think that's another example of not just West Pointers, not just bringing together the 1968 team, or me bringing together the team handball people by annoying them and just constantly contacting them so they do participate, but also making a difference at a national level. Better recognize Olympians, and even more important, I think, are Paralympians today because their recognition is lacking.
0:23:20.3 Jamie Enos: Well, I think that's quite flattering. And I think that our leadership team and our staff at AOG would be just completely honored to know that some of the activities and routes that we take to communicate, and those examples are being used by our grads to influence other organizations in a positive manner.
0:23:39.4 Tom Lough: Oh, yeah, I've used AOG.
0:23:41.2 Jamie Enos: We couldn't have been more delighted to hear that. What a wonderful compliment. So thanks for sharing that, Craig.
0:23:46.9 Tom Lough: Yeah. AOG is a great example of how things could be run efficiently and also very effectively, emotionally or personally, so that the alumni, they're part of it instead of just being treated like a number. For example, we have a parallel organization called the Olympians for Olympians Relief Fund. And one of the things that I've been lobbying for them to look at is the model that AOG has.
0:24:16.6 Craig Gilbert: So that is another item. It's no longer the Olympians for Olympians Relief Fund, it's now the Olympians and Paralympians Relief Fund. I was on that board for a couple of years. And I actually recruited Elexa Wills to replace me. Elexa is a Olympian out of Houston, triple jumper, class of 1990. So you'll find other West Pointers. Who's our bobsledder? Lorenzo. So Lorenzo Smith is also on the board of directors of bobsledding. And I know that Peter Lash, also a teammate of mine, class of '82, teammate in 1984 and on the '88 Olympic team, is on the US team handball foundation. And a lot of people are supporting not only their sport but other areas as we move forward.
0:25:19.0 Jamie Enos: So let's transition a little bit into the feels piece of this. And representing the United States at the Olympics, Tom, you were in Mexico City, and Craig, you were in Los Angeles. You didn't get the fun foreign experience. You had the domestic, which for a hometown crowd, I imagine was big as well. What was... Describe opening ceremonies, that big night of all the athletes in there. Did both of you attend opening ceremonies?
0:25:47.8 Tom Lough: Yeah.
0:25:48.2 Craig Gilbert: Yes.
0:25:49.1 Jamie Enos: You did? Yeah. So, could you describe what opening ceremonies was like for you? You want to go first, Tom?
0:25:55.8 Tom Lough: Okay. Well, I can remember that we had to... In our day, we actually marched in the opening ceremony, so we had to practice marching and we had a number of...
0:26:04.0 Jamie Enos: Oh, you had practice with that, though, going in, right?
0:26:07.9 Tom Lough: That's right. We had to practice. I didn't have to practice, I knew how to march, of course, but...
0:26:11.8 Jamie Enos: Right.
0:26:12.9 Tom Lough: Most of the team were not military, and so we had to march around the Olympic Village. Practicing a few days before the opening ceremony was hysterical, but we finally got everybody where they could get in step, and got on the buses and took off. Well, we had to wait in a series of holding pens as the opening ceremony began, and then we droned on and on and then finally started bringing in the athletes. And I remember that the women were ahead of us, and then we had to go through a tunnel into the stadium. And inside the tunnel, it was just dark and buzzing and everything. And when we came out into the stadium, we emerged into this huge cauldron of sounds, sound like I've never heard before or again in my life, just surrounded by this thousands and thousands of people yelling and shouting and cheering for our country. It was just an amazing moment. And it was right then that I realized, oh, my gosh, this is really big time, and really put a spring in my step. And it's a moment that I've never forgotten.
0:27:18.4 Jamie Enos: And what about you, Craig? How was your opening ceremony night?
0:27:22.4 Craig Gilbert: First of all, to have a Olympics in the United States, it is something that is special. We do it better than just about anybody. Hopefully, Paris does it very well this year. My Olympic experience started out with all of the athletes getting in front of a stage where President Reagan came to talk, and he was a great communicator and just an awesome time. After he spoke, one of my teammates, Timmy Frank, jumped up onto the stage, and the security, he bypassed The Secret Service, folks.
0:28:03.9 Tom Lough: Oh, my gosh.
0:28:05.4 Craig Gilbert: And he shakes his hand and says, "Good luck with the country, sir," and...
[laughter]
0:28:11.7 Jamie Enos: Oh, no.
0:28:12.9 Craig Gilbert: And jumps off the stage. So goalies in team handball get hit in the head a lot, so that could be part of it. But the start of a special moment, then an hour or so later, we marched on... We didn't march the way that Tom did. I think we shuffled, but it was... And Americans are the last to come in if you're the host country, or whoever the host country is. And in the LA Coliseum of, what? 110,000, it was just breathtaking.
0:28:48.2 Jamie Enos: That's amazing. What an amazing experience to have...
0:28:52.7 Tom Lough: In fact, this particular experience we're describing with the opening ceremony and coming into the stadium, it seems to be so common to so many Olympians that when they designed the new museum for Olympians and Paralympians out in Colorado Springs, that they made that particular experience part of the museum design, so that visitors could go through a little tunnel of some sort and come out in a way that's similar to the way the Olympians and Paralympians did in their own opening ceremony.
0:29:28.7 Jamie Enos: So would you choose West Point graduation or Olympics opening ceremonies?
0:29:34.7 Craig Gilbert: I would have to say that they are both highlights in my life, really for different reasons. One is, "Thank God this is over," and the other one is just more of just joy of being able to accomplish. But they're actually pretty similar because they are something that very few people in the world get to do. And I think as West Pointers, with our duty, honor, country, and with the Olympic motto of "Citius, Altius, Fortius-Communitaire", there aren't two better mottos to bring together in the world.
0:30:15.4 Tom Lough: That's true. And something you said a moment ago made me think of this combination in a way I hadn't before, is that in a way, we can regard our West Point graduation as the achievement or the final step in a long, arduous journey, and then we springboard into the future. But then the opening ceremony of the Olympics is just the beginning of a fabulous competitive experience that was still ahead of us. Our challenge was still ahead of us.
0:30:52.9 Craig Gilbert: Actually, I would say graduation and opening ceremonies are exactly the same because it's... You've finished your education and your training, and now you're going on to conquer the world. I get goosebumps from that right now, and it's because it is an evolution. And Olympics, a lot of people are all hung up on medals and who won and all that stuff. That's the last thing that the Olympic movement is really about. It is about stronger, faster, higher, continuing to do better in whatever you do. I don't care if it was playing tiddlywinks or raising a child. They're all very similar. You need to have dedication, perseverance to be able to move forward, to accomplish anything that you want. And it doesn't just happen by chance. And I think that is really the foundation, at least for me, on how can... From West Point, to be able to understand that and be able to take it on going forward. I remember after the '84 games, Jack Kelly, who was the president of the Olympic Committee at the time and unfortunately died a couple of months after I met him, he gave a speech at Fort Dix, when I was at Fort Dix. And I got a chance to shake his hand as he was walking out. And the only thing he said to me is, "Stay involved." And at that point in my life, I was like, "I've got a military career. I've got other things to do. I need to retire from sports and move forward."
0:32:38.4 Craig Gilbert: And it wasn't until my life was under control 30 years ago and getting pestered by Colonel Troy from class of '46 and annoyed by Tom Lough repeatedly. And I love Tom to death. Where he's like, "Hey, Craig, can you do this?" And, of course, you're gonna do anything that Tom says because he's got the ideas. And luckily, my wife has the drive to be able to complete things. I just happen to be along for the ride with her. So...
0:33:07.7 Tom Lough: Well, Gretchen is great. Yeah. [chuckle] Oh, golly.
0:33:12.7 Jamie Enos: So, Craig, that's a great transition. You are headed to the Paris 2024 Olympics. This time...
0:33:19.4 Tom Lough: That's right.
0:33:21.3 Jamie Enos: You will not be competing, but you will be there. So can you explain to us, tell us about that role, what you're gonna be taking on there? Your wife is also joining you and going as well. Tell us more about that adventure.
0:33:34.9 Craig Gilbert: So, with the work that I've been doing with the Olympic Committee over the past few years, I've volunteered to work at USA House, which is gonna be probably the best viewing location of the Olympics in France, if not the world. They're taking over a palace in Paris that used to be the old French stock exchange. And USA House is an area for Olympians and Paralympians to relax with their families. But this year is also gonna be a VIP center. So it is going to be just a wonderful location. I'm sure there's gonna be a media center there. I actually have a call later today on prep for that with the other volunteers that are gonna be there, but we're looking forward to that and looking forward to working with all the Olympians. And I'm especially excited to meet up with Sam, our latest Olympian, who's gonna be number 91.
0:34:37.0 Tom Lough: 91. Yeah, I think 91.
0:34:37.9 Craig Gilbert: 91. She's our 91st Olympian. And I can't say enough about how difficult it is for a West Point graduate to negotiate what you have to do at West Point today, because I look at it and there's like no way I could get in with the quality of people that are there. These people are brilliant, they are incredibly physically fit, and also to be able to manage a military career is, to me, just simply wonderful. And I think that is also a situation where, to be able to do that, you have to have significant support from the academy. In my day, believe it or not, was my tactical officer and my coaches, to be able to do that. But the stresses and items that have to happen now as cadet are, they are always been rigorous, but it just seems like there are more tollgates and more things that need to be accomplished. So I applaud her, and I applaud anyone that is looking to be able to live their dream, they are all possible, and if not, they've done as best as they can to pursue things.
0:36:02.8 Tom Lough: Well, let's take that idea and turn it around, because we've been talking about how can we inspire the cadets? But I think I might have the wrong idea now. That these cadets we've been talking about, though, and their incredible capabilities and their fantastic potential, they really inspire me, and I think they inspire other West Point Olympians as well. So it's gonna be a reciprocal type of deal here, that I think we're better by knowing of them and of their achievements as well.
0:36:37.8 Jamie Enos: I think that's a great point, Tom. We're talking about very high-quality cadets coming out of the classroom, coming out of leadership experiences here at the academy, heading in, for example, with Captain Sammy Sullivan that you were referencing before, who will be playing with the rugby team, the women's rugby team. She is a WCAP athlete, so she's still active duty, doing all of her service, trying to do both at the same time and also train, get on the team, and now head into Paris and compete there. So, incredible stamina to get through all of those obstacles and tollgates, as you mentioned, work ethic, physical. We have her on another podcast, for the listeners, they can tune in and find her as well on our channel. She talks about how she has to balance all of those different aspects and get to this point of the high-level competition and the sacrifices that come along with it as well. You have to make some hard choices sometimes of what you're gonna do and where you're gonna be and who you're gonna be there with.
0:37:42.0 Tom Lough: Just tune in to any of these Olympic trials that are going on and try to figure out what on earth did these athletes have to go through just to get to the trials. And then only the top one or two or three in some of these categories are taken to the Olympics for competition. And then the ones that don't make it, sometimes they're just, the margin is just razor thin. And you think about this, tens of thousands of hours of training that it took. How can a West Pointer ever get through all that? And we still have a few that are managing to do so. It's just remarkable.
0:38:20.2 Jamie Enos: Right. And we have so many other constraints when you're a cadet here at West Point, the academic and the physical and the military training that you have to do as well, that compound and take away from. We do have cadet athletes and recent grads that were at the time trials for track and field as well as swimming. We have women's lacrosse players that are looking at the training team and trying to balance that with their military commitments. So it's a little tough. And it's not a typical college where you can just leave in the middle of the summer. No, you've got to go to CFT, you've got to go out to all your trainings. Those don't get erased. Those are graduation requirements. So they're trying to battle through how to do that. And sometimes that means delaying and maybe not being on the team in the first round and then having to work another three, four years to get into the next Olympics. So, to say that there are 90 turning into 91 and hopefully the 95s, and 100s, and 105s as we keep going through the years and look at the next two for the winter and the summer coming up, it is a true feat for all of you that you have accomplished in addition to just being an Olympic athlete.
0:39:33.7 Craig Gilbert: So, I'd like to make a, the team handball program at West Point this past year had, first of all, I think out of the last 43 years or so, they've won 38 of the national champions intercollegiate. But last year, four West Point cadets were named to compete in the world junior championships, the first time that the US has ever competed and we had four that were there. Three of the four did go on, the fourth ended up not, although he was the goalie and one of the most instrumental people for them to qualify. He did not go because he was on a sabbatical or he went to Chile for that training instead of, for a whole semester. But also after I graduated, I think I was a captain at the time, between the '80 and '84 games. And I was also in an elite athlete program, which is now the WCAP program. But for the most part, WCAP only covers two years before that. So two years before an Olympics, so you've got a period of time that you got to do it on your own. So I was stationed at Fort Dix. I was living in the Princeton area, which is about 30 minutes away, but I had my normal job. I think I was a company commander at that time, maybe not, I might have been on a staff position. And I had to go and do PT at like 6:30 in the morning, then do my normal job and travel up to what was almost North Jersey, three or four nights a week to go train and get home at like 11 o'clock, and then do it all over again.
0:41:27.2 Craig Gilbert: So, it was after probably about six or eight months that we were away from PT because we didn't really need to go to PT. It wasn't a simple process to be able to do it. And especially in off Olympic years that WCAP or the elite athlete program wasn't covering you.
0:41:50.4 Jamie Enos: To give you that extra support, sure, certainly. Yeah, and it's more than just your training. You've got the physical, you've got the mental, the nutrition, the rest and recovery, all of those elements. And depending on what that military training cycle is, sometimes you don't get out of that. There is no rest or there is no recovery. So...
0:42:13.1 Tom Lough: I'd like to give a shout-out for modern pentathlon at the Academy as well, because we have all the facilities at West Point to train in modern pentathlon. And it's gonna be, it would be very difficult for a cadet to be able to put all that together and shoehorn it into their schedule, but they could accumulate some experience through the triathlon club with the running and swimming competition, and then through the fencing organization that they have there with, and then the pistol shooting. But there's a new event coming into the modern pentathlon called obstacle running. And if the cadets work out on obstacle courses, then I think they would get some good experience for that. So the bottom line there for that would be, that in the Olympics, there are a number of combination sports like biathlon, triathlon, and modern pentathlon, where you don't have to be the world's or the national champion in a specific discipline. But if you're a fairly good athlete in a number of disciplines, then you have a chance of making a team in those multi-sport events, as they're called. So if any cadet is interested in that sort of a pathway, there it is.
0:43:26.9 Jamie Enos: And I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention that donors to the margin of excellence are supporting all of these programs here at West Point. This is that margin of excellence that we talk about, the difference outside of the classroom, that we create these opportunities. So thanks to the donors that have supported the cadets through this, whether they become Olympians or not, it's still the journey on becoming...
0:43:45.2 Tom Lough: Greatly appreciate the recognitions to all...
0:43:48.8 Jamie Enos: The leader of character and graduating from the academy.
0:43:50.4 Tom Lough: To that target. Yeah, absolutely.
0:43:52.6 Jamie Enos: Tom, you have a unique piece, though, too, outside of all of that and being an Olympian. I don't even know how to segue into this. You've composed music that has been played at West Point as well. Is this your hobby? Is this just for fun? What? How does that happen, too?
0:44:12.8 Tom Lough: Yeah. For the past 10 or 12 years, I've been a reasonably serious music composer, mostly for church music. I composed a hymn for Veterans Day called, Ever Faithful to the Call, that has been sung at West Point a number of times up at the chapel. But more recently, I went a different direction, as you said, and composed a march. I never composed a march before in my life, but I thought, well, let's make a march designed as a tribute to the American soldier, and let's take the listeners through a day in the life of the soldier, through the bugle calls with march music in between. And for some reason, I guess that attracted the attention of a number of people and eventually came to the attention of the commanding officer of the West Point Army Band. And Colonel Tobin got in touch with me and said, "Well, if you can get this arranged, we might be able to play this at a parade at West Point sometime." "Oh, my gosh. Are you kidding me?" So a few other things had to get lined up for all that to happen, but eventually it did. And would you know it, that our West Point class of 1964 60th anniversary reunion was held at West Point on one of the few weekends that there was a parade, this past spring semester. And they played this march, A Day in the Life, as the march-on music, as all the... As the two regiments were coming onto the plane preparing for the pass in review. It was an amazing moment. [chuckle]
0:45:39.6 Jamie Enos: Okay. And to be able to share it with your classmates, how incredible, right? That's...
0:45:43.8 Tom Lough: Yeah, they were... They announced, "Today's march-on is, A Day in the Life, composed by 1964 graduate Tom Lough." and all my classmates, you could hear them in the background just yelling and cheering. That was so cool. [chuckle]
0:45:56.2 Jamie Enos: That's awesome. Craig, do you have anything that keeps you challenged?
0:46:01.2 Craig Gilbert: Well, I do work for Bank of New York and in cybersecurity, so there's a few challenges daily that happen. There is such a rich history of the Olympians. When we did the project, my wife and I did the project of getting bios and reviewing what the accomplishments of West Point Olympians were, it was simply amazing. Looking at what their careers are, I had to dig in and used AOG resources, me get into archives and be able to pull information up. But to find out that, as an infantry officer, I found out, Follow me! For I am the Infantry! Is from a gold medalist in the Olympics. Name was Aubrey Newman, four-star general. And that was just one of the chills that kind of went through me to see, like, "Holy cow, look at how these people have influenced over the years."
0:47:00.3 Jamie Enos: Did you have any inspirational words for anybody at West Point, the cadets, as they go through their 47-month journey?
0:47:07.2 Craig Gilbert: I would say that, for everybody that wants to join the team handball team and is good enough to get there, continue to get the women's and national, women's and men's national championship, and keep that running. Thank you to all the coaches of team handball, because it is a really unrecognized sport with all of the... With everything that they've accomplished, it's a struggle similar to what you're going through with women's hockey, and I applaud you for that, because I guarantee women's hockey at West Point is going to simply explode, and they are going to be leaders in the future. I also have to say, "Go Team USA." But more importantly, "Go Army! Beat Navy!"
0:47:57.2 Tom Lough: Navy, that's right. Yeah. I also would share with cadets a new definition of success that I have evolved towards, and that is the continued steady, incremental progress as part of the journey toward a goal. And I found that, for me, such a definition has inspired me and sustained me in the ups and downs, mostly the downs, of any journey I take. That's trying to achieve a goal. And just being able to make steady, incremental progress toward the goal is really important and has sustained me in a long series of journeys that I've been on.
0:48:42.8 Jamie Enos: Well, gentlemen, thank you so much again for being on the podcast. Couldn't end it any other way than saying, "Beat Navy."
0:48:48.5 Tom Lough: Yeah.
0:48:49.0 Craig Gilbert: Go Army! Beat Navy!
[chuckle]
0:48:51.2 Jamie Enos: And let's go Team USA.
0:48:54.2 Tom Lough: And see. Yep. Let's go Paris 2024. And then once that's done, LA '28.
0:49:01.6 Jamie Enos: LA. How exciting.
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