Reed Paolucci was no stranger to West Point when he visited over the weekend.
Paolucci’s eyes were opened to Army football through his brother, Grant, who plays golf at the academy. Paolucci took family trips to visit his brother and attended a couple of Junior recruiting days.
With each passing visit, Paolucci knew that playing football and attending was an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up. The Blythewood, S.C. offensive lineman closed his recruiting Saturday, committing to coach Jeff Monken on Knight on the Hudson weekend.
“The amount of respect that you get from being at West Point, all of the job opportunities and being able to serve in the military all played a role and what drew me to West Point,” Paolucci said. “I eventually made the decision to commit to West Point, because of all those reasons for being able to serve my country, get a great education, get the respect, being able to get a lot of job opportunities, and everything else that comes with it.”
Paolucci had other opportunities to play high-level college football. Duke and Wake Forest offered the 6–foot-3, 300-pound rising senior. American Conference schools East Carolina and Charlotte were among Paolucci’s FBS offers.
“There were things at Army West Point that no other school has,” Paolucci said. “No other school gets the amount of respect that you get at Army. There’s no school that can make you such a great leader and such a great person down the road. There’s no such school that can get you so many job opportunities just completing college. Those other offers that I had were definitely good offers, but they didn’t compare to the excellence of Army.”
Paolucci can play anywhere on offensive line but is being recruited as an interior lineman. He’s looking forward to continuing Army’s strong offensive line tradition in the Jeff Monken era.
“I’m so excited to play offense line at West Point because of how physical everyone is and I’m ready to hit people” Paolucci said. “I also love how well West Point produces offensive lineman. I’m very excited for that.”
