New London — Coast Guard Academy linebacker Kyle Wood was trying to encapsulate his four-year career at the school Wednesday and was giving a few nuggets about baseball season, where he also serves as the Bears' third baseman.

Football coach Bill George asked Wood about his batting average.

"I don't know, coach," Wood said.

George: "Don't you start?"

Wood: "Yes, coach."

George: "But you don't know your batting average?"

Wood: "No, coach."

Kyle Wood, a 6-foot-1, 220-pound senior, gets ready to end his football career Saturday when Coast Guard (5-4, 4-2) travels to Endicott for a New England Football Conference matchup and what will be the Bears' season-finale (noon).

Just don't ask Wood to write his own headlines.

"I don't like to give big speeches. I give a quote now and then at the end of practice. I do what I do," said Wood, one of the Bears' three captains playing their final game, joining fellow linebacker Paul Puddington and left guard Tommy Condon. "I'm just hoping everyone wants to work as hard as I do."

Wood, a NEFC first team all-star last season and a second team pick in 2013, is second among Coast Guard defenders this season with 74 tackles in eight games, missing the Bears' opener due to injury. He leads the conference with an average of 9.2 tackles per game.

In baseball, Wood was one of three players to start all 32 games, drawing a team-best 33 walks which helped him compile an on-base percentage of .459, also best on the team.

Wood batted .253.

"His personality is to be quiet. He leads in a quiet way," George said. "He plays football fast and hard. He's proven that he's a good football player, a good athlete."

Wood and his brother Andrew, both football players, have each chosen military academies to pursue their career paths, perhaps influenced by their grandfather, who served in the Navy during the Korean War, and an uncle who served in the U.S. Marines.

Andrew, listed at 6-foot-4, 300 pounds, is a freshman offensive tackle at the Naval Academy, ranking as the 49th-best offensive guard in the nation by rivals.com following his high school career. Andrew narrowed his college choices to Purdue, Duke, Mississippi State, Louisville and Navy before choosing to serve his country.

"He ignored a lot of what I said," Kyle Wood said with a smile, admitting that he did well with the academy's Swab Summer, but struggled as a sophomore. "But I told him, 'It's going to be worth it.' It's a good place to be from."

The brothers, who hail from Mount Juliet, Tenn., won a state championship together at Friendship Christian School in nearby Lebanon.

Wood said his family (including parents Greg and Kyra and youngest brother Coleton) had a house boat on Center Hill Lake, about an hour from Nashville, where he would spend a few days at a time growing up.

Wood knew he liked the water, but never knew what actually being at the Coast Guard, being on the East coast or being on an ocean would entail, the good or the bad.

"The people," Wood said of what he found to be a culture shock in New England. "They speak a little faster. They walk a little faster. ... I never had a huge (accent). You can catch it in certain words. Paul makes fun of me for saying the number 10; I guess I say it like 'tin.'"

And the good?

"I was on a boat and you can't see land and the sun's going down over the ocean," Wood said. "I could look back and none of my friends from high school were going to ever get to experience that.

"I just have a lot of fun playing sports with my friends. That's what makes it all worth it. ... We definitely want to go out with a winning record, but most of all I want to have fun with my boys (Saturday). I'm looking forward to just being out there."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday