Army West Point Athletics
MISSION FIRST: Man On A Mission
November 24, 2016 | Baseball, General
Every kid wants to be an astronaut or a professional athlete, right? But the idea usually fades away by, what, sixth or seventh grade? Somewhere around reaching the double-digit age, kids realize the idea isn't only far-fetched but somewhat comical, in the same goal-setting neighborhood as, say, becoming a pro athlete.
And so they find more realistic goals like a teacher or a trainer, maybe a doctor or even a lawyer.
Robert Shane Kimbrough never stopped wanting to be an astronaut. His grandparents lived virtually across the street from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., where Shane spent much time during his early years watching the activity with wonderment.
He just didn't realize he could accomplish the goal by attending the United States Military Academy.
Born in Killeen, Texas, Kimbrough grew up in a military family. His dad, a retired colonel, served three years in Vietnam and Shane spent most of his scholastic years in the Atlanta area. His parents, though, carefully created a typical upbringing for Shane. The military wasn't drilled into him. Shane pretty much discovered the Academy the way many teens come upon West Point.
Through sports.
Football was his favorite, but at 5'10" and 165 pounds, Shane saw his college calling in a sport less determined by size. He could throw a baseball fairly hard and accurate. He was a pitcher.
He had a few Division I offers. Army baseball coach Dan Roberts started recruiting Kimbrough, and he was struck by the beauty and history of West Point upon his visit as a high school senior. He decided he wanted to be an Army officer.
"I thought, if I was going to be an Army officer,'' he says, "I was at the very least going to be the best Army officer I could be.''
While those words echo a popular Army slogan, they also exemplify Kimbrough's outlook on life. There were no shortcuts, no apathetic crawl toward meeting minimal standards. Kimbrough poured every ounce of effort into everything he did. He lacked the typical Division I frame, even for baseball and certainly for D-I pitchers. But his mental toughness, his poise and focus and ability to shrug off adversity, helped make him a bulldog on the mound.
"It was nothing like anything I had ever experienced,'' Kimbrough says of West Point. "It was taking people kind of out of their comfort zone. I learned a lot about myself. I learned to be part of a team. The people were great. Of course, you don't get a feel for how tough (West Point) is.''
Kimbrough, who would major in Aerospace Engineering, had a typically tough transition as a freshman. But few cadets outworked him, in the classroom or on the ballfield. He made the Dean's List his sophomore year, an academic achievement he would carry the rest of his West Point career.
A left-hander, Kimbrough was a starter his first two seasons despite a fastball that topped out at maybe 85 miles per hour. But he could put it where he wanted and used a nasty split-fingered fastball, a popular "out-pitch" of the times. It looked like a change-up, arriving in the low- to mid-70s, and danced past lunging batters.
Kimbrough was moved into the closer's role as a junior. He changed his delivery that season to compensate for a barking elbow and became even more adept at slicing pitches into tiny pieces of the strike zone.
By senior season, he was captain of the 1989 Army team.
Kimbrough wasn't the "in-your-face" team captain. He was the quintessential captain and future soldier who focused on supporting teammates while displaying a model work ethic. He led the squad with 15 appearances in 1989, and Kimbrough's five saves remain 10th all-time on Army's single-season list.
Army won 82 games in Kimbrough's career. He branched in Aviation, and even after three or four years in the military figured his chances of becoming an astronaut were remote. In late-1990, barely more than a year after graduating from West Point, he was assigned to the 24th Infantry Division in Fort Stewart, Ga., and soon deployed to Operation Desert Storm. Kimbrough was an attack helicopter Platoon Leader. He earned a master's of science degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1998 and became an Assistant Professor in Math Sciences at West Point.
Kimbrough was teaching at West Point when a 1979 Academy
graduate named Pat Forrester, a senior Army astronaut at NASA, asked Kimbrough to work at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"We bring young officers in that have potential to let them work for a while,'' says Forrester, who has performed three Space Shuttle missions. "As a commander, as soon as I met him, I thought he'd be the perfect guy. We look at everything: education, GPA, assignments, references. … I think the same kind of people that West Point looks for, NASA looks for.''
Forrester cites Kimbrough's personality, demeanor, leadership and "followership" -- a NASA buzzword describing an adept leader who can co-exist perfectly with peers -- as well as a reliable "gut feeling.''
"Every now and then, I'm proven wrong,'' Forrester says matter-of-factly.
He was, as usual, on target in assessing the makings of this astronaut.
Kimbrough worked at Johnson for a couple years and became one of 5,000-6,000 people applying for the NASA program. Eleven candidates would be chosen. Merely reaching the interview stage, the final 100 candidates, was a significant accomplishment. Intensive medical testing weeded out many candidates with the most subtle of health issues. Kimbrough fit the profile despite NASA's leadership philosophy slightly differing from that of West Point's.
"They don't necessarily want somebody to take charge and make commands all day,'' he says.
Kimbrough fielded questions for an hour before a 15-person selection board. He was selected by NASA in 2004, and by 2008, he completed his first Spaceflight on STS-126, a 16-day mission to expand the crew living quarters to accommodate a six-member crew.
Eight-and-a-half minutes after launch, at speeds of 17,500 miles per hour inside a craft with six fellow crew members working in quarters the size of a small tent, Robert Shane Kimbrough, West Point Class of '89, crafty lefty with that nifty split-fingered fastball, was in Space.
"It was just incredible,'' says Kimbrough, one of 40-something astronauts in the U.S. "The launch was incredible, an incredible feeling having those rockets attached to you.''
He performed two Spacewalks for a total of 12 hours, 52 minutes, an exercise to fix parts of the Space Station. Kimbrough describes the job as trying to change the oil in a car wearing ski mittens. The labor included installing a new television camera and setting up GPS receivers.
"It's a very detailed thing,'' he says. "It was a challenge.''
Stephen Bowen, also performing his first mission, was alongside Kimbrough. "He was awesome,'' says Bowen, who has accomplished three missions. "His attention to detail; he is very operationally minded. His focus is on getting the job done, which is very important. To do that and to not make it too stressful, to make it a comfortable work environment. When the stakes are that high, I think that's when being an Army helicopter pilot comes in handy.
"The really stressful part is the realization that you've put in two years of training continuously and thousands of people have put in time to make sure that he's able to do the mission,'' Bowen says. "The realization that now it's up to me to get the job done. That's really the burden.''
Kimbrough's second mission will be a five-month endeavor from Russia aboard Expedition 49/50 with two Russian cosmonauts scheduled for takeoff in September. It's a Russian vehicle taking off in the middle of the desert. Kimbrough spent two-and-a-half years training for the mission, including thoroughly learning the Russian culture and its language. The crew will spend two days testing the craft's modified systems before docking at the Space Station. At the Station, they will join three Expedition 49 members, and together the six-crew will perform over 200 experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science.
"He has that special quality that you want to be around him,'' Forrester says of Kimbrough. "I trust him like family. I admire him for what kind of man he is and what kind of astronaut he is.''
Kimbrough, like his dad a retired colonel, doesn't think about the risks of the mission. He's focused solely on how he will perform his duties and help care for the crew, keen assets honed at the Academy and implemented on military missions.
"The crew is the most important thing to me,'' he says. "You have a team of hundreds of people on the ground that are making sure that we are going to come back to our families. Those people are so dedicated; they are special. Their whole mission is to get us into Space and get us back home.''
One of the hardest parts of Kimbrough's job is being away from his wife Robbie and their three children for extended periods. One son, 16, just began his junior year in high school. Twin daughters, 18, just left for college.
"No matter how many times you leave or deploy, it only gets harder,'' he says.
"It's hard and he does it very well,'' Forrester says. "He is a family guy who is involved in their lives. That's an extra burden for a guy like that.''
Â
And so they find more realistic goals like a teacher or a trainer, maybe a doctor or even a lawyer.
Robert Shane Kimbrough never stopped wanting to be an astronaut. His grandparents lived virtually across the street from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., where Shane spent much time during his early years watching the activity with wonderment.
He just didn't realize he could accomplish the goal by attending the United States Military Academy.
Born in Killeen, Texas, Kimbrough grew up in a military family. His dad, a retired colonel, served three years in Vietnam and Shane spent most of his scholastic years in the Atlanta area. His parents, though, carefully created a typical upbringing for Shane. The military wasn't drilled into him. Shane pretty much discovered the Academy the way many teens come upon West Point.
Through sports.
Football was his favorite, but at 5'10" and 165 pounds, Shane saw his college calling in a sport less determined by size. He could throw a baseball fairly hard and accurate. He was a pitcher.
He had a few Division I offers. Army baseball coach Dan Roberts started recruiting Kimbrough, and he was struck by the beauty and history of West Point upon his visit as a high school senior. He decided he wanted to be an Army officer.
"I thought, if I was going to be an Army officer,'' he says, "I was at the very least going to be the best Army officer I could be.''
While those words echo a popular Army slogan, they also exemplify Kimbrough's outlook on life. There were no shortcuts, no apathetic crawl toward meeting minimal standards. Kimbrough poured every ounce of effort into everything he did. He lacked the typical Division I frame, even for baseball and certainly for D-I pitchers. But his mental toughness, his poise and focus and ability to shrug off adversity, helped make him a bulldog on the mound.
"It was nothing like anything I had ever experienced,'' Kimbrough says of West Point. "It was taking people kind of out of their comfort zone. I learned a lot about myself. I learned to be part of a team. The people were great. Of course, you don't get a feel for how tough (West Point) is.''
Kimbrough, who would major in Aerospace Engineering, had a typically tough transition as a freshman. But few cadets outworked him, in the classroom or on the ballfield. He made the Dean's List his sophomore year, an academic achievement he would carry the rest of his West Point career.
A left-hander, Kimbrough was a starter his first two seasons despite a fastball that topped out at maybe 85 miles per hour. But he could put it where he wanted and used a nasty split-fingered fastball, a popular "out-pitch" of the times. It looked like a change-up, arriving in the low- to mid-70s, and danced past lunging batters.
Kimbrough was moved into the closer's role as a junior. He changed his delivery that season to compensate for a barking elbow and became even more adept at slicing pitches into tiny pieces of the strike zone.
By senior season, he was captain of the 1989 Army team.
Kimbrough wasn't the "in-your-face" team captain. He was the quintessential captain and future soldier who focused on supporting teammates while displaying a model work ethic. He led the squad with 15 appearances in 1989, and Kimbrough's five saves remain 10th all-time on Army's single-season list.
Army won 82 games in Kimbrough's career. He branched in Aviation, and even after three or four years in the military figured his chances of becoming an astronaut were remote. In late-1990, barely more than a year after graduating from West Point, he was assigned to the 24th Infantry Division in Fort Stewart, Ga., and soon deployed to Operation Desert Storm. Kimbrough was an attack helicopter Platoon Leader. He earned a master's of science degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1998 and became an Assistant Professor in Math Sciences at West Point.
Kimbrough was teaching at West Point when a 1979 Academy
graduate named Pat Forrester, a senior Army astronaut at NASA, asked Kimbrough to work at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"We bring young officers in that have potential to let them work for a while,'' says Forrester, who has performed three Space Shuttle missions. "As a commander, as soon as I met him, I thought he'd be the perfect guy. We look at everything: education, GPA, assignments, references. … I think the same kind of people that West Point looks for, NASA looks for.''
Forrester cites Kimbrough's personality, demeanor, leadership and "followership" -- a NASA buzzword describing an adept leader who can co-exist perfectly with peers -- as well as a reliable "gut feeling.''
"Every now and then, I'm proven wrong,'' Forrester says matter-of-factly.
He was, as usual, on target in assessing the makings of this astronaut.
Kimbrough worked at Johnson for a couple years and became one of 5,000-6,000 people applying for the NASA program. Eleven candidates would be chosen. Merely reaching the interview stage, the final 100 candidates, was a significant accomplishment. Intensive medical testing weeded out many candidates with the most subtle of health issues. Kimbrough fit the profile despite NASA's leadership philosophy slightly differing from that of West Point's.
"They don't necessarily want somebody to take charge and make commands all day,'' he says.
Kimbrough fielded questions for an hour before a 15-person selection board. He was selected by NASA in 2004, and by 2008, he completed his first Spaceflight on STS-126, a 16-day mission to expand the crew living quarters to accommodate a six-member crew.
Eight-and-a-half minutes after launch, at speeds of 17,500 miles per hour inside a craft with six fellow crew members working in quarters the size of a small tent, Robert Shane Kimbrough, West Point Class of '89, crafty lefty with that nifty split-fingered fastball, was in Space.
"It was just incredible,'' says Kimbrough, one of 40-something astronauts in the U.S. "The launch was incredible, an incredible feeling having those rockets attached to you.''
He performed two Spacewalks for a total of 12 hours, 52 minutes, an exercise to fix parts of the Space Station. Kimbrough describes the job as trying to change the oil in a car wearing ski mittens. The labor included installing a new television camera and setting up GPS receivers.
"It's a very detailed thing,'' he says. "It was a challenge.''
Stephen Bowen, also performing his first mission, was alongside Kimbrough. "He was awesome,'' says Bowen, who has accomplished three missions. "His attention to detail; he is very operationally minded. His focus is on getting the job done, which is very important. To do that and to not make it too stressful, to make it a comfortable work environment. When the stakes are that high, I think that's when being an Army helicopter pilot comes in handy.
"The really stressful part is the realization that you've put in two years of training continuously and thousands of people have put in time to make sure that he's able to do the mission,'' Bowen says. "The realization that now it's up to me to get the job done. That's really the burden.''
Kimbrough's second mission will be a five-month endeavor from Russia aboard Expedition 49/50 with two Russian cosmonauts scheduled for takeoff in September. It's a Russian vehicle taking off in the middle of the desert. Kimbrough spent two-and-a-half years training for the mission, including thoroughly learning the Russian culture and its language. The crew will spend two days testing the craft's modified systems before docking at the Space Station. At the Station, they will join three Expedition 49 members, and together the six-crew will perform over 200 experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science.
"He has that special quality that you want to be around him,'' Forrester says of Kimbrough. "I trust him like family. I admire him for what kind of man he is and what kind of astronaut he is.''
Kimbrough, like his dad a retired colonel, doesn't think about the risks of the mission. He's focused solely on how he will perform his duties and help care for the crew, keen assets honed at the Academy and implemented on military missions.
"The crew is the most important thing to me,'' he says. "You have a team of hundreds of people on the ground that are making sure that we are going to come back to our families. Those people are so dedicated; they are special. Their whole mission is to get us into Space and get us back home.''
One of the hardest parts of Kimbrough's job is being away from his wife Robbie and their three children for extended periods. One son, 16, just began his junior year in high school. Twin daughters, 18, just left for college.
"No matter how many times you leave or deploy, it only gets harder,'' he says.
"It's hard and he does it very well,'' Forrester says. "He is a family guy who is involved in their lives. That's an extra burden for a guy like that.''
Â
This Week in Army Football: UTSA
Tuesday, November 25
This Week in Army Football: Tulsa
Tuesday, November 18
Army Rugby vs Navy 11/15/25 (KnightVision Free Live Sports)
Saturday, November 15
Army Sprint Football vs Navy 11/15/25 (KnightVision Free Live Sports)
Saturday, November 15