Gronk conquers West Point's combat wave pool for cadets

FOX NFL Sunday set up at West Point and Annapolis for Veterans Day weekend, so of course Gronk got dropped into the deep end of the academy's toughest pool.

This wasn't a pool party. According to FOX Sports, the Survival Gate Combo is a survival swimming test cadets can't skip. You fight through the water while machines throw artificial wind and rain at you, and you have to come back up with a brick from the bottom of the pool. Gronk went in, got the brick and passed. His pregame scouting report on himself was 'I'm brave and I'm ready to go,' which is about as much film study as you'd expect from him.

The stakes were for the cadets. Because Gronk passed, the whole cadet class gets a week off from the rigid dress uniforms and can wear combat uniforms instead. That's a real win for a few thousand people who get told what to wear every day, and they cheered like it. Julian Edelman worked the segment holding the FOX mic, so the Patriots reunion tour that's been running through FOX all fall made a stop on the Hudson too.

Cons

@CaptainCons

This is a standard day at West Point

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

Gronk took on the combat wave pool at West Point & brought the cadets combat uniforms all next week ELECTRIC

Calling it a 'standard day' is the joke, because nothing in that clip looks standard. There's a helmet cam, a murky underwater shot, an entire academy losing its mind on the grounds, and a helicopter parked in the background like a prop. For the cadets the brutal part is the normal part, since this pool is a test they actually have to pass. Gronk going through it once on TV is the novelty.

It also fits the bit FOX keeps handing him. Gronk has become the network's stunt guy, the 6-foot-6 tight end who gets sent off a building or into a pool while the panel watches from a desk. The difference this time is that people got something out of it. FOX built the weekend around the academies, starting with Big Noon Kickoff at West Point on Saturday and then a Sunday show split between West Point and Annapolis, and this was the segment that gave the cadets a reason to love it.

Next week's formation is where the stunt actually pays off. Every cadet showing up in combat uniforms will be walking around because of Gronk, and somebody at West Point should hang that brick somewhere.