College Basketball Career and Military Service
David Robinson is widely considered to be the best basketball player in U.S. Naval Academy history. He chose the jersey number 50 after his idol Ralph Sampson. By the time he took the court in his first basketball game for the Navy Midshipmen men's basketball team, he had grown to 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m), and over the course of his college basketball career he grew to 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m). In Robinson's final two years, he was a consensus All-America and won college basketball's two most prestigious player awards, the Naismith and Wooden Awards as a Naval Academy first classman (senior). Robinson played his first three years for the Midshipmen under Paul Evans (who left Navy to coach at Pitt) and under former University of Georgia interim Head Coach Pete Herrmann during his senior season. Upon graduation, he became eligible for the 1987 NBA Draft and was selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the first overall pick; however, the Spurs had to wait two years because he had to fulfill his active-duty obligation with the Navy.
Robinson was 6 ft 8 in when he was admitted to the Naval Academy, two inches above the height limit, but received a waiver from the Superintendent of the Academy. Robinson considered leaving the academy after his second year, before incurring an obligation to serve in active duty. He decided to stay after discussing with the Superintendent the likelihood that his height would prevent serving at sea as an unrestricted line officer, hurting his naval career, and might not make it possible for him to be commissioned at all. As a compromise, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman placed Robinson in a program for training civil engineers for the Naval Reserves that reduced his active-duty obligation to two years. After graduating from the Naval Academy, Robinson became a civil engineering officer at the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia. He was regularly featured in recruiting materials for the service. Despite the nickname "Admiral", Robinson's actual rank upon fulfilling his service commitment was Lieutenant, Junior Grade.
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