Heisman Trophy candidate Ashton Jeanty's football roots trace back to a Navy base in Italy

GRICIGNANO DI AVERSA, Italy (AP) — The football field immediately strikes the eye for visitors driving on an overpass approaching the U.S. Navy Support Site outside of Naples.

An American football field in the middle of southern Italy.

Turn past the pothole-filled local streets, get through the security gate, and the unkempt Italian roads are replaced by perfectly paved thoroughfares. Home to more than 500 families, the Navy base is where Heisman Trophy candidate Ashton Jeanty learned to play football.

Now a junior running back for 15th-ranked Boise State and a unanimous selection on The Associated Press midseason All-America team, Jeanty’s talents were first spotted by Naples High School football coach Jim Davis when he was in seventh grade.

Not on the football field, though. That's because tackle football wasn’t an option for middle schoolers.

It was on the basketball court during middle school lunch.

“He’s going up for a layup and he’s getting so much height I’m thinking this kid’s about to dunk the ball,” said Davis, who also teaches physical education at the school. “As a seventh grader, you can imagine how short he is. He’s 5-9, 5-10 now. So he was probably closer to 5-4 or 5-5. And it’s like, ‘Wow, look at the power this kid has at such a young age.’”

Davis had to wait two years to unleash that power in his team when Jeanty was a high school freshman in 2018.

And it wasn’t until the coach moved Jeanty from quarterback two games into the season that he really began to take off.

“I realized he needed to be the running back. I could get anybody to hand off the ball to him,” Davis told the AP during an interview at the military base this week.

In the remaining four games of Naples’ season, Jeanty ran for over 1,200 yards on fewer than 100 carries and scored 17 touchdowns.

“I’d be lying to you if I told you that (I thought) he would be a Heisman candidate,” Davis said. “The only person that probably really felt that way was himself. But I knew he could play at the next level, and that’s why I knew he had to leave here to get the exposure.”

So Davis encouraged Jeanty to go back to the U.S. for his final three years of high school. And that’s what Jeanty did by enrolling at Lone Star High School in Frisco, Texas. Now he leads the nation with 1,376 yards in seven games for Boise State and is considered the top running back prospect for the NFL draft.

The one year of football that Jeanty played in Italy was unlike anything most American high school athletes experience.

Naples’ closest competition is nine hours away at a similar base in Vicenza in northern Italy. During Jeanty’s season, the team also played games in Germany, Belgium and Spain. The game in Germany required an 18-hour bus ride.

Current Naples quarterback Camden Kasparek was the ballboy when Jeanty played on the team.

“On those long bus trips, you do a lot of team bonding, a lot of cool opportunities, a lot of fun trips with the team,” Kasparek said, adding that Jeanty still keeps in touch with him via social media and follows the school’s results.

Featuring a movie theater, a bowling alley and a supermarket stocked with American goods, the Navy base is like a home away from home for the kids who live there.

“We have Popeyes and Wendy’s and Subway, and they can buy American clothes and they can buy Skippy peanut butter and Halloween candies now and they’ll go trick or treating here shortly,” Davis said. “So, yeah, it’s very much like a little America.”

Because the Navy support site field doesn’t have lights, some of the team’s games are played at the Carney Park military recreational facility inside a dormant volcano in nearby Pozzuoli.

The rec site is linked to a relationship between the U.S. military community and Naples that dates back to World War II.

“It’s pretty neat," Davis said. “You see the crater all around you.”

Growing up in a military family helped shape who Jeanty is.

“The sense of discipline, order. You work until the job (is) done, not just because the time is over,” Davis said. “He has that work ethic.”

Other athletes have followed Jeanty’s path before from overseas bases to the elite level like George Teague, Michael Strahan, Alejandro Villanueva — and Shaquille O’Neal in basketball.

Military life translates well to football.

“It’s all about teamwork, discipline and honoring the chain of command: not having to like the person next to you, but respecting them to get the mission complete," Davis said.

Davis often wakes up during the middle of the night now to watch Jeanty play. What he sees isn’t much different from what the coach witnessed first-hand six years ago.

“He wouldn’t go down on the first hit. He was explosive. You just felt like you’re always sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for him. You know, next touch might be a touchdown,” Davis said.

“Most of our games were high scoring, like 45-42, 38-35. We were just very fortunate most of those times that we had the ball last. So we were never out of it as long as we gave it to No. 2.”

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Wildcats team Quarterback Camden Kasparek is interviewed by The Associated Press at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Coach Jim Davis is interviewed by The Associated Press prior to the start of a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Wildcats team players practice during a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Wildcats team players practice during a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Wildcats team Coach Jim Davis is interviewed by The Associated Press as Quarterback Camden Kasparek practices at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Coach Jim Davis, background center, talks to his players during a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Coach Jim Davis attends a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Coach Jim Davis is interviewed by The Associated Press prior to the start of a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Coach Jim Davis, center, talks to his players during a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

CORRECTS YEAR - Ashton Jeanty, bottom first from left, poses for a team picture in Naples, Italy Sept. 2018. (Sharon James via AP)

Wildcats team Quarterback Camden Kasparek practices during a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

CORRECTS YEAR - Ashton Jeanty, second from right, smiles with his teammates in Spangdahlem, Germany on Sept. 2018. (David Albright via AP)

Coach Jim Davis shows the jersey worn by Ashton Jeanty as he is interviewed by The Associated Press prior to the start of a training session at the football field of the U.S. Naval Support – Site in Gricignano di Aversa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is heading toward the finish of a strong, potentially perfect week as U.S. stocks on Friday drift close to the all-time high they set just a few months earlier, though it may feel like an economic era ago.

The S&P 500 was up 0.1% in early trading and potentially on track for a fifth straight gain. It’s heading for a 4.6% rise for the week, which would be its third big winning week in the last four, as hopes build that President Donald Trump will lower his tariffs against other countries after reaching trade deals with them. Such hopes have driven the S&P 500 back within 3.6% of its record set in February, after the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts briefly dropped roughly 20% below the mark last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 52 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Trump’s trade war had sent financial markets reeling worldwide because of twin dangers. On one hand, tariffs could slow the economy and drive it into a recession. On the other, it could push inflation higher. A couple better-than-expected reports on inflation this past week helped soothe some those second worries.

But all the Trump’s on-and-off rollout of tariffs could by itself damage the economy by creating so much uncertainty that it causes U.S. households and businesses to freeze their spending and long-term plans. A report coming later in the morning will offer the latest snapshot of sentiment among U.S. consumers, which has been souring sharply because of tariffs.

In the meantime, Treasury yields eased in the bond market following this week’s better-than-expected signals on inflation, which could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to cut interest rates later this year if high tariffs drag down the U.S. economy.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.39% from 4.45% late Thursday and from more than 4.50% the day before that. Lower bond yields can encourage investors to pay higher prices for stocks and other investments.

On Wall Street, Charter Communications rose 1.3% after it said it agreed to merge with Cox Communications in a deal that would combine two of the country’s largest cable companies. The resulting company will change its name to Cox Communications and keep Charter’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

Novo Nordisk’s stock that trades in the United States fell 1.8% after the Danish company behind the Wegovy drug for weight loss said that Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen will step down as CEO and that the board is looking for his successor. The company cited “recent market challenges” and how the stock has been performing recently.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 inched down by less than 0.1% after the government reported that Japan’s economy contracted at a faster rate than expected in the first quarter of the year.

AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader talks on the phone near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Trader Edward Curran works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Jonathan Corpina works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader William Lawrence works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Traders Jonathan Mueller, right, and Michael Capolino work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)