His first week at the Naval Academy nearly sent him to pack his bags. It was shock, plain and simple. The yelling, the demands, the regimen. Nobody in his family had ever been in the military, so there was no way for Travis Bridges to know what to expect.

“That whole first week I was in a daze. Zoned out,” Bridges said.

But every time he thought about packing his bags, he pictured his father. No way could he quit on his father. Not after everything the two had been through together. So Bridges would swallow hard and go on, determined to make his father proud. After that first week, something clicked. "I knew I had to go through this to make me better," he said.

Life had delivered its share of shocks to the Bridges men. When Travis was 3, his mother died of a brain tumor. She was 33. His father became a single parent, unable to bear the same question Travis asked for months.

“Where’s mommy?”

They had no family nearby. So his father did the best he could, never once considering offers from his mother and sister to care for Travis themselves.

“They were all in the wings expecting that,” the elder Bridges said. “It wasn’t going to happen. I knew what he needed to get needed to come from me.”

Bridges did the best he could, sending Travis to school and then after school care. The only time the two got together was a few hours at night before bedtime. It went on like this for a while, until his father decided he had enough. He wanted to have more influence on his son’s life, and decided he needed to take a more active role.

So he quit his job. The elder Travis Bridges played saxophone and had other musical interests, so he figured that would be enough to keep them afloat. But he misjudged the market for musicians.

Three months later, the Bridges were homeless. Travis was in elementary school, but the elder Bridges never said a word to his family in North Carolina or Ohio about his troubles. He kept Travis’ hair trimmed neatly, put him in hand-me-down clothes from his nephews, and always made sure he had food to eat. The two ended up moving from house to house thanks to a realtor friend who was in the business of flipping houses. The elder Bridges estimated they moved six times in nine months.

“I would definitely make the same decision. The only thing I would have done differently would be not quit the job without having something else stable,” the elder Bridges said. “All I saw at the time was I need to have more of an influence on my son. I knew he was impressionable at that time and what was going on in his life at that time was critical. I knew I couldn’t let him go through that, going to school all day, then aftercare, come home, eat and then right to sleep. That was not working for me.”

The younger Bridges remembers those days, but never thought much about them.

“I do remember bouncing from house to house,” Bridges said. “I didn’t really think about it as a struggle or anything like that. I figured it was me and my dad and we had a place to stay.”

It went on like this for about a year, until the elder Bridges could piece some work together. It was around this time that football began to interest little Travis.

“We were on the way to the beach and drove by a park when I was really young,” the younger Bridges recalled. “There were a whole bunch of kids running around. I was looking out the window and my dad saw me watching and asked, ‘Do you want to play?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He turned around and drove me to the park and that’s how I got started.”

But it took a while. Travis had to sit out his first year because he was 50 pounds overweight. Instead, he handed out water bottles. But the next year, he made weight and got to play on the offensive and defensive lines when he was 7 or 8. Everything started stabilizing for the family when Travis was in the fifth or sixth grade. The elder Bridges had some projects take shape, and he also began work for a radio station. He was able to buy a condo, and now owns his own production company, Mighty Horn Music.

The elder Bridges got to work from home and keep an eye on his son. Meanwhile, the younger Bridges continued to blossom on the football field. His play in high school caught the eye of the Naval Academy.

Bridges enrolled last fall, and now he has an opportunity to see some playing time as a reserve at guard. He dislocated his elbow during spring practice, but should be ready for the fall.

No matter what happens, he is guaranteed to have a story that could one day be made into a Hollywood screenplay.

“I’m just thankful for everything I have,” he said. “I try not to complain. Things may not be going right school wise or football wise, but I’m not going to sulk about it. I’ve been through bad things before. I strongly believe a lot of people wouldn’t be able to do what my dad was able to pull through. Those days I thought about quitting, I just prayed about it and say no I can do this. I’m going to do it for my dad. He made a lot of sacrifices for me, and I just want to make him proud.”