When I was a junior MIDN, I was genuinely opposed to it and thought some of our athletes had gotten away with murder in Admissions and were real shitbags. Maybe they did back in the 2005 Admissions Department, who knows, I wasn't there. By the time I was graduating, having been an athlete (though not recruited) for 2 out of my first 4 years of the Academy, my mind was shifting more towards thinking "damn, those guys work really friggin hard. I could only do varsity sports 2 of the years because I needed more time to focus on school. They may not be getting A's, but I can't bench even within 100 pounds of 280 either, and I don't wake up before 5 almost every day for my first of 3 practices." Then I worked in admissions, and saw the line of thinking in Admissions was "if you're good enough academically, and you're good enough to be a top recruit for a D-1 school, you're doing something right and there's a value in having people around who may focus on physical fitness and teamwork than just academics," and agreed with it even more. Then I got to the fleet, and a lot of those supposed "shitbags" made some really great pilots and some fine officers, and our superiors could not have told you with much degree of accuracy who was a "shitbag" at the Academy and who was a "golden child."