Army offers football scholarship to honor, mourn high school player

There is no such thing as a football scholarship to West Point — cadets don’t pay tuition.

There is no way to heal the pain of parents mourning the loss of a 16-year-old son.

Somewhere between those absolutes rests the gifts given to the Long Island family of Tom Cutinella, who died Oct. 1 from injuries suffered during a high school football game, by the Army athletic department.

Tom had hoped to attend either West Point or the Naval Academy after graduating Shoreham-Wading River High School. In the aftermath of Tom’s death, Shoreham head football coach Matt Millheiser contacted an alum who’d attended West Point, hoping the academy could send a jersey bearing Tom’s No. 54 to the grieving family.

Buddy Gengler, West Point Class of 2001, contacted Bob Beretta, now the school’s executive athletic director, who’d served as sports information director when Gengler played on the baseball team.

“Within minutes, I got an email back that said, ‘We’re on it.’” Gengler said Wednesday.

About 36 hours after that email, Gengler left West Point en route to Long Island with the jersey, a handwritten letter from Army head football coach Jeff Monken to Tom’s family, and unique documents that required permission from the NCAA to create, he said.

“They actually generated an official acceptance and scholarship letter to Tom,” Gengler said. “They went so far as to put it in the envelope that would’ve been mailed to the high school. I mean, down to the last detail.”

Gengler, who moved back to his hometown with his family after leaving service, presented the materials to Tom’s family.

“From all I have read about Tom, he was the kind of young man that everybody would want on their team ... loving, committed, dedicated and servant-minded,” Monken wrote in the letter to the Cutinella family, a copy of which Gengler provided to Army Times.

In the letter addressed to Tom, offering him a full scholarship, Monken wrote: “My goal is to have the #1 team and program in the nation. I am not, however, interested in just great players! I seek quality young men who uphold the values of Duty, Honor, and Country to lead West Point to the pinnacle of collegiate football. I believe you are a difference maker!”

An Army athletics spokesman said the school had no comment on the gesture, only confirming a news report on the gift from the Riverhead News-Review.

“I’ve always been proud to be from West Point, but I’ve never been prouder than when I drove out the gate that day,” said Gengler, who deployed to Iraq in 2003 with 2nd Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.

School officials, he said, went out of their way to make Tom’s family “part of the Army family that they never had the chance to be a part of.”