Austin Peay State University (APSU)
Clarksville,TN – Austin Peay State University (APSU) Governor’s Guard ROTC cadets continue to show why they’re among the best in the nation.
Their latest achievement – finishing runner-up in the 7th Brigade ROTC Bold Warrior Challenge November 2nd-4th, 2018 at Fort Knox, Kentucky – strengthens the battalion’s claim to an eighth General Douglas MacArthur Award, which goes to the eight top-performing ROTC units in U.S. Army Cadet Command.
[1]Standing from the left are Paul Kearney, Braydon Donnell, Alden Marvin, Thomas Rose, Steven Price, coach Keith Colman, Jasmine Barrios, Kylie Head, Brendan Hagens; kneeling from the left are Daniel Cole, Wesley Gray and Thomas Porter.
The Bold Warrior is a grueling, two-day challenge that pushes cadets during six straight hours of competition the first day and 16 hours the second day. Cadets covered about 40 miles of terrain during the two days, much of the time carrying ruck sacks.
“The whole point was to challenge everybody both mentally and physically, so everywhere they went they had to solve a problem,” Lt. Col. Eric Westphal, APSU professor of military science, said. “They had to have a plan; otherwise, they wouldn’t be successful.”
Austin Peay succeeded, competing against 17 teams and beating such universities as Michigan State, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt. All the teams in Bold Warrior had advanced from a preliminary round that included cadets from 109 schools.
Meet The Bold Warrior
[2]Austin Peay State University ROTC cadets march during the Bold Warrior Challenge earlier this month at Fort Knox, KY. The team finished second.
Cadets faced dozens of challenges during the two days, earning points along the way.
Friday night’s competition kept cadets at the barracks complex and challenged them with a series of physical and mental tasks, including climbing a 15-meter rope and navigating monkey bars as many times as possible in 10 minutes. Austin Peay finished the night in fifth place.
[320left]The next morning took the 11-member teams into the field from 6 a.m.-5:30 p.m. The day started with a 3.2-mile march to Fort Knox’s training area, where the cadets faced 15 challenges, or stations.
“They drop you off in the middle of the training area at Fort Knox and tell you ‘stay on this road until someone stops you,” APSU cadet and assistant team captain Daniel Cole said. Each stop represented a challenge in the competition. “‘Amazing Race’-style, we had to pick how we’d attack each challenge with the end state being getting as many done as you could.”
Conquering Pont Du Hoc
[3]A cadet completes the one-rope bridge at the competition. The one-rope bridge was one of the few challenges teams knew about ahead of the competition.
The most difficult of the challenges, “Pont du Hoc,” came in the afternoon, said Cole, a former sergeant first class and participant in the Army’s Green to Gold program at Austin Peay.
APSU team coach and retired Master Sgt. Keith Colman described Pont du Hoc this way: “They had to go down almost a cliff probably 250 meters, and then they had to climb back up. There were parts of it when they were on all fours, holding on to the rope, climbing.
“Once everybody was on top, one person had to touch a placard hanging in a tree.”
The cadets didn’t find a solution at first.
[320right]“It was the first time I saw the team struggle for a second,” Cole said.
Cadet Kylie Head noted she had experienced a similar challenge while cheerleading.
“So, they made a human pyramid and threw her up there to hit the sign,” Colman said.
Austin Peay was one of only four teams to finish all the challenges.
Excelling At The Commander’s Challenge
[4]Austin Peay State University ROTC cadets march during the Bold Warrior Challenge earlier this month at Fort Knox, KY.
After the Day 2 stations, cadets faced a 4.5-mile march over rough terrain. This was more than 12 hours into the day. APSU cadet Wesley Gray finished first and cadet Thomas Porter finished third.
“It was just breaking people, they were hurting,” Westphal said.
The day wrapped up with the Commander’s Challenge, a CrossFit challenge known as a “Murph.” Cadets had run a 1.25-mile relay, do 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups and 300 squats then run the relay again. The Murph happened at the end of 16 hours of competition.
By the end of the day, Austin Peay moved from fifth to second place.
“They were amazing,” Westphal said.
The Secret To Austin Peay State University Success
[5]Austin Peay State University ROTC cadets tackle one of the challenges during the competition.
Several factors and strategies helped set Austin Peay apart:
- Teams earned extra points the second day by sending out cadets to find geographical points, or Easter eggs. Most teams sent out cadets at each station; APSU sent out two cadets – Jasmine Barrios and Alden Marvin – for the entire day. The duo found all but three points and hiked more than 40 miles.
- Gray and Porter are members of Austin Peay’s track team and completed, sometimes single-handedly, the marching and running events. In one running event, they combined for 10.3 miles, Westphal said, a feat other teams used all their cadets to accomplish. For his efforts, Porter won team MVP.
- Austin Peay tried to attack each station in the order they appeared, and if they needed to wait for another team to finish, they’d eat, rest and plan. Other teams often bypassed stations – then returned to them later – instead of waiting. The APSU team then ran to the next station, often passing other teams, and passed several during the day.
- Austin Peay always benefits from cadets who are military veterans and from its proximity to Fort Campbell. The team’s captain, Steven Price, and assistant captain, Cole, are both former Army sergeants first class, for example.
- Austin Peay spent three months training for the competition. Westphal said cadets will continue to train through the year for next year’s Bold Warrior.
“The second-place finish set the bar high for next year’s cadets,” Gray said. The winning team, Central State University, advances to the U.S. Military Academy’s Sandhurst Competition in the spring. “Although we all would have liked to win the competition to compete at West Point, our team now has more experience as to what it takes to compete at that level.”
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A Peek Inside The Cadets’ Training
Gray broke down the three months of training (5:45am-7:00am every day) leading up to the Bold Warrior:
- Monday: CrossFit with a 3-mile run after. Map reading 3:00pm-4:00pm.
- Tuesday: 50-meter sprints on the track, then sprints up the Dunn Bowl hill, followed by knot-tying. Map reading 3:00pm-4:00pm.
- Wednesday: Push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups, following by rope bridge practice in uniform and ruck. Map reading 3:00pm-4:00pm.
- Thursday: 5-mile foot march in uniform with ruck.
- Friday: Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, dips and interval runs.
To Learn More
- For more about Austin Peay’s Governor’s Guard ROTC, visit https://www.apsu.edu/rotc/ [6]. [6]
- To learn more about the Sandhurst Competition, go to [6]https://www.usma.edu/dmi/sitepages/sandhurst%20competition.aspx. [7]