Spartan paratroopers help host JROTC Raider Cup

  • Published
  • By Sgt. Brian Ragin
  • 4-25th IBCT Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps cadets chosen from the best athletes from Anchorage's eight JROTC programs competed in the 2014 Raiders Cup Competition Sept. 5 and 6.

The competition, at Camp Carroll on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, was designed to determine which high school had the most physically fit JROTC cadets.

Paratroopers of the 725th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, helped host The Raider Cup.

The competition is fitness-based, and is composed of 10 events over two days.
Dimond High School sponsored the two-day event.

Schools that participated were Bartlett High School, Chugiak High School, Dimond High School, Eagle River High School, East High School, Service High School, South High School, and West High School.

Each team consisted of six females and six males, with 10 cadets participating in each event from each school. Each event had two reserves in case they had to alternate.
The competitions included a climbing wall, an inflatable obstacle course, the inverted crawl, run-dodge-and-jump, tug-of-war, a 20-meter Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run, a one-mile run, basketball toss, 60-meter relay, and the Davey Jones relay.

Due to inclement weather, some events had to be canceled due to safety concerns.
One senior noncommissioned officer and 14 enlisted Soldiers with the 725th BSB were graders at the event.

"The cadets are really having fun out here today," said Pvt. D. Jaye Latham. " You can really tell that these guys came out here to compete. They are really at each others' throats. The teammates are pushing each other to do better than the next team."
One event canceled due to rain was the obstacle course.

"We are a little disappointed this year," said Gunnery Sgt. A. Rene Dervaes III, a retired U.S. Marine and Chugiak High School's JROTC naval-science instructor. "The rain stopped the main event [the obstacle course], but wait till March; that's the one that gets
real competitive."

The tug-of-war teams were placed by random draw in a double-elimination bracket. The event started Friday evening and went on to be the talk of the competition.

"It was one of the longer events," said Sgt. 1st Class Arthur Taylor, 725th BSB's noncommissioned officer-in-charge of the graders. "There were so many teams. It just was a long process to get to the end. But the Navy JRTOC team, they had it down to a science, they won that event. No doubt about it."

The overall winner of the Raider Cup was determined by computing all event times together.

The winner would be determined by the lower time across the board of all events. Dimond High School's Army JROTC program won the competition.