“You can always have better teamwork and leadership; I was assigned as the team leader. And I feel like I did a rather good job with that, but there is always something to improve when it comes to leadership and teamwork.” stated Olivia Honaker, FIT Seargent Major.
FIT Field Day is a competition that is between JROTC programs from around the region. It has multiple events, and the cadets that participate are specifically chosen. Just like any other competition there is first, second, and third place. However, it does not matter what place you receive because this is used to help build teamwork, leadership, and show pride for your program.
FIT Field Day occurred on Thursday, October 27, 2022. The event was held at the soccer fields and track of Oak Hill High School.
Schools participated from all over the region: Fayette Institute of Technology, Princeton, Bluefield, Pikeview, Nicholas County, Greenbrier East, James Monroe, Woodrow, Webster, and Greenbrier West. Each school had primarily two teams an Alpha and Bravo, but there were some who had a third team.
Each team competed in several types of activities. The total of their scores combined determined their overall placement. This competition was during school hours but ended early enough for the other schools to get back to their home schools. Lunch was provided for everyone.
“For all the counties and schools here, it tests their physical fitness and team-working skills. And it brings all the camaraderie of kids together and they compete,” stated Colonel Chris Selvey, U.S. Army, Retired.
The events the cadets participated in were the Mile Run, Push-Ups, Tired of You, Wheel it on Over, Plates will be Brought, and Tug for your Life. The Mile Run is to see who can run the mile in the fastest time. Push-Ups have two main goals, to see how many you can do and to get more than the person before you. Tired of You is when four people carried a tire up and down the soccer field. Wheel it on Over is when they race with wheel barrels filled with cement blocks. Plates will be Brought, is when they do a race with weighted plates. Tug for your Life is when the schools participate in rounds of tug of war. When only two schools were left, there was a championship round.
For scoring, the team that received first place in an event earned ten points. The second place team earned eight points. Third place earned six points. Fourth place earned four points. Fifth place earned two points. Sixth place earned one point. Seventh and below earned half points. Each team had their own total of points scores. Then with those combined scores, they received their school’s total score.
The cadets that participated were specifically picked. JROTC cadets go through a big fitness test called the Cadet Challenge. Whoever has the best time on the mile and push-ups, will get picked to do them on FIT Field Day. Another way cadets are selected is from their programs Raider team. Raider team is the JROTC fitness team; they are more of the program’s workouts and athletic side. Where they already have experience of other activities, they will be picked for the ones they are more confident in and better with to do. There are seven team members with two alternates on each team (Team members can consist of freshman and higher). Even though there are multiple ways to choose cadets, it can be a difficult choice.
“It was a difficult choice because we had such little options, for example in Charlie Company. Because it was one of the companies that we had a hard time selecting cadets from” Hunter Davis, FIT Battalion Commander, stated.
The competition events were graded by members of the National Guard, who were a mixture of the Army and Air Force. Aside from being in the National Guard, they are also recruiters. This means they were looking at cadets for the future. At the event Tug for Your Life, the winning school team went against the recruiters in a match. However, the recruiters won the match.
At the event, a check of one thousand dollars was donated by the Punishers, who is a biker organization that does charity events and donations. The people who presented it was the President of the Blackbird Chapter Harley Volksen, his associates Mike Garten, Ken Parrit Jr., Doug Coxx. Along with them was President of the Black Bear Guardian Chapter Aber Gilliam and her associate Mary Kennedy. Cadets Olivia Honaker, Hunter Davis, and Colonel Selvey received the check.
When the day concluded Greenbrier East had earned first place, Fayette Institute of Technology earned second place, and Woodrow Wilson earned third place.
Receiving first for FIT JROTC would have been nice, but that was not what was most important. What was important was the representation of teamwork and leadership. But also, the JROTC programs coming together and having fun as a community.
