Georgia Military College’s Lyssa Blair can now lay claim to a title that not very many can say they’ll ever earn.
The GMC junior is an Ultimate Raider.
Blair and her peers traveled to the Gerald I. Lawhorn Scouting Base in Molena last weekend for the 2017 U.S. Army National Raider Championships as part of the GMC Raider team.
She and her fellow Bulldogs did not disappoint.
“On Friday, our black team placed fourth in nationals, our male team got third in the All-Service event, and red team on Saturday took third in the nation,” said GMC Raider head coach Maj. Todd Van Dine.
Van Dine joined GMC this past summer after 24 years in the U.S. Army and three years as an ROTC instructor at the University of Florida, where he led the Gators to their first Raider state championship at the collegiate level.
“There were 1,500 cadets there, to give you an idea of how big it was. Aiden [Greer] came in second in the nation, and Lyssa [Blair] came in first.”
The Raider competition pits Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) programs against each other in a battle of strength, willpower and endurance.
Raider Nationals serves as the official Army championship for the top Raider program in the country. Fifty-two schools competed last weekend in events such as one-rope bridge crossing, the gauntlet (a timed-obstacle course), cross-country rescue course, a physical team test and a 5K run.
GMC’s Blair bested all other female competitors while Aiden Greer of GMC came in second among the males.
With 30 teams competing in the ‘All-Service’ competition and more than 40 in the Army JROTC Championships, the weekend provided quite a spectacle for Molena, the Pike County town of less than 400. Friday, the All-Service competition pitted freshman and smaller-sized teams against each other in a series of Raider events, while Saturday’s Raider Nationals served as the Army’s official championship of JROTC Raider teams across the country. The championship included a comprehensive physical team test, a rope bridge event testing cadets’ ability to traverse a river using only a length of cord, a cross-country rescue where cadets carry a weighted stretcher simulating a wounded comrade through an obstacle course, a ‘Gauntlet’ obstacle course event wearing weighted rucksacks, and a 5K team run in which teams are docked points for crossing the finish line with their slowest teammate more than 10 yards behind. Sunday featured the Ultimate Raider competition, in which males and females carried a 35-pound rucksack through a 1.7-mile obstacle course.
That’s where Blair shined.
“Winning was definitely a surprise to me,” said Blair of her first-place Ultimate Raider finish. “I was really nervous the night before, and my friends actually forced me to go to sleep so I would have enough energy. Finally I fell asleep, and when I woke up in the morning I said ‘Oh my Lord, I’m about to do this’.”
In past years, GMC has traditionally sent seniors to compete in the Ultimate Raider, in which teams are allowed only one representative each for the male and female events. This year, Van Dine selected Blair and Greer, two juniors, and the decision to put forth his two best Raiders paid off in a big way.
“Unlike some of our past coaches, [Maj. Van Dine] can physically do everything that we do, and he knew exactly what was going on,” said Mary-Elizabeth Jones, who finished her fourth and final season on the Raider team this weekend. “He was instrumental for our team this year.”
After such a successful weekend against the finest high school Raider teams in the country in Van Dine’s first year, the outlook for GMC’s Raider unit looks promising in the coming years. After returning from paternity leave for he and his wife’s first daughter, who was born this week, the Raider coach and his assistants Emily Boylan and Jason Barbee plan to implement a year-round training regimen for cadets to stay in shape outside of the Raider season. He also plans to recruit enough girls to create an all-female Raider team, as well as to instill the values of character and determination into his cadets.
“My favorite part about Raiders is the brotherhood that we possess,” said Davis Isley.
Like Jones, Isley is a four-year Raider who plans to continue doing ROTC at the collegiate level, and hopes to attend West Point this fall. “Out of my entire friend group, most of my closest friends are all Raiders. … The shared experience of the Raider team and sucking wind when everyone else is playing Xbox over the summer really solidifies that brotherhood, and I know that if I ever needed help with anything, I’d just find somebody with that Raider tag on, and that will be the case for the rest of my life.”
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