Boston College is known for fostering different student-athletes. The school's academic reputation blends with its power conference athletics affiliation to cause a special, unique proving ground. The school's mission of "men and women for others" is an additional layer, one built around service to the world as part of a larger, Jesuit-based foundation.
It's a combination requiring great personal sacrifice at all levels, and the captains of all teams understand the earned honors of that identity. It is why their leadership is even more special, a tightrope walk of elite brains and physicality. On the football gridiron, the names that rise into those positions create lineages of greatness, one cited by recruits and transfers as a gateway to the sport's next level.