FEBRUARY 9, 2025 – When the Kansas City Chiefs square off against the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl, Feb. 9, 2025, keep an eye out for Cole Christiansen, a U.S. Military Academy graduate and Army officer-in-waiting.
After graduating from West Point in 2020, the linebacker entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Los Angeles Chargers. He joined Kansas City’s practice squad in 2022 and earned a Super Bowl ring that season even though he wasn’t on the 53-man active roster.
This year is different: He’s on the Chiefs’ depth chart, making the jump from practice squad to standout linebacker. For an athlete who fully expected to end his football career and begin an Army career just a few years ago, it’s a remarkable feat.
In 2019, President Donald J. Trump signed a memorandum that allowed a few service academy athletes to defer commissions and pursue professional sports.
Christiansen is among the handful of academy standouts who took advantage of the program. Despite his uncommon career path, he remained committed to the promises he made at West Point.
“As soon as I got to the academy, all I wanted to do was graduate, earn my commission and begin my Army career,” he said. “The opportunity to play football at the highest level is a blessing, but my ultimate goal hasn’t changed.”
Christiansen’s unlikely path to the NFL started in Suffolk, Virginia. He grew up on an equestrian farm, where ranch life — with its daily responsibilities and wide-open spaces — made for an active childhood. Christiansen credits his father for introducing him to team sports, and by third grade, he realized it was his calling — though tackle football didn’t come as naturally.
“I wasn’t really that much bigger than my peers,” Christiansen said. “And it took several years before I really embraced the physical aspect of the game. But eventually, I stopped avoiding contact, and I started having fun.”
He emerged as a standout defender at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy in Virginia, and by his senior year, he received more than a dozen scholarship offers.
One came from West Point’s then-defensive coordinator, Jay Bateman, who spotted Christiansen at an Old Dominion University football camp. Until then, he hadn’t considered a service academy.
“I started to research West Point after the camp ended,” he said. “I’d received scholarships from a couple Ivy League schools, but as soon as I realized what West Point was and what it stood for, I knew I couldn’t turn the offer down.”
Christiansen was sold, but his mother was a bit skeptical. When the academy invited him to campus for an official visit, Monica Christiansen prepared her eldest child with a battery of questions for the Army coaching staff.
“I think there were, like, 100 questions on her list,” Christiansen said. “I thought they’d see the notepad and send me back to Suffolk on a Greyhound, but Coach Bateman answered every question.”
The cadets he met during the visit were equally transparent. They explained that the military academy experience was different. “It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be worthwhile,” they said. It was exactly the endorsement Christiansen wanted to hear. “I knew it was going to be hard, but I wanted it to be hard,” he said.
Christiansen went on to start 35 games for Army, serve as a two-year team captain, earn All-Independent First Team recognition and a spot in the NFL Players Association Collegiate Bowl. He led the Black Knights with 112 tackles in his senior year, which was highlighted by a 16-tackle performance against Air Force.
His tenure at West Point wasn’t without struggles. “I hit a low point during my sophomore year,” he admitted. “Believe it or not, it was the survival swim that almost got me.”
Christiansen added 20 pounds of muscle to his frame after his freshman year. But his training regimen that summer was tailored to the gridiron, not the pool. For cadets, passing survival swim is a graduation requirement, and Christiansen said he showed up as “buoyant as a sandbag.”
“I grew up near Virginia Beach, and I’d been in the ocean all my life, so I thought I could handle it,” he said. “It ended up being a gut check. I barely passed.”
Beyond the survival swim, Christiansen thrived at West Point, embraced the academy’s core principles and worked to balance his responsibilities on the football field with his professional duties.
“You don’t put on a uniform and all-of-a-sudden become some different person, but West Point shapes you over time,” he explained. “I was a patriot when I was young, sure, but I didn’t realize the value of service until I went to the academy.”
During his senior year, Christiansen settled on field artillery as his service branch and chose Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, from a list of duty stations, fully expecting to commission alongside his classmates that summer. But fate — in the form of the 2019 memorandum — intervened. The opportunity to play the game that brought him to West Point at the professional level — and on a national stage — was too good to ignore. He received a waiver, paused his service and found himself in an NFL uniform the following year.
When Christiansen’s football career ends, his active-duty Army commitment resumes. Still, his experience at West Point continues to shape his outlook.
His ability to process information quickly, discipline and commitment to his teammates has helped extend his professional playing career. Once he is through with football, he said he’s pretty sure a rucksack will feel as natural on him as a pair of shoulder pads.
“I have a five-year obligation, and I’m kind of anxious to get started — I don’t want to push it too far down the road,” Christiansen said. “This country’s given me so much. And I wouldn’t be in New Orleans if it wasn’t for that memo. It changed my life — the least I can do is honor my commitment. When that day comes, I’ll be ready to serve wherever the Army needs me.”
By Army Maj. Wes Shinego
DOD News