GMC News
GMC Raiders competition to draw hundreds to Milledgeville
GMC sport to draw hundreds to Milledgeville
GMC Raiders to host competition
Lt. Col. David Lewis talks with Milledgeville City Council on Tuesday about an upcoming GMC Prep sporting event that will bring hundreds of participants and others to Milledgeville on Saturday, Oct. 3.
The Georgia Military College Prep Raiders are hoping for another great season like they experienced a year ago.
Last year, they were the envy of all military prep cross country rescue teams in Georgia, because they won the state championship and finished runners-up nationally.
Even so, the team has never competed on its home field in Milledgeville. What they have accomplished as a team has all been done on the road when it comes to competing.
But that’s about to change.
The GMC Raiders, as they are known, are preparing to host their first-ever competitive meet on the school’s campus.
The big event, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3, will draw 30 teams, and 360 participants, according to Lt. Col. David Lewis, who heads the GMC Prep JROTC program. And with a crowd of 200 to 300, the event could easily draw 600 to 700 people or more.
“We want to make this is a great thing for Milledgeville, as well as for our school,” he said.
Lewis talked about the upcoming event with Milledgeville City Council members and the mayor during a work session meeting on Tuesday at city hall.
“Basically it’s a varsity sport, military-style,” Lewis said, noting there are all male teams, all female teams and mixed teams with both male and female members. “We started the Raider program two years ago and did really well, placed in the top 10 in the state the first year, and then last year we won state and second in the nation.”
Lewis said he’s hopeful the team can win a state title again this year.
“This year we are hosting our first Raider meet,” Lewis said, noting that all the action gets started at 7 a.m. on Oct. 3.
The event will last all day with some of the teams not competing until afternoon times.
“It’s going to take place down on the Greenway, the course that GMC has,” Lewis told city officials.
The competition is broken down into different events.
The first one is the team run.
“The entire team has to stay together,” he explained. “When the slowest person crosses the line, it’s 3.2 miles. And you’re timed.”
The next event involves a team obstacle course, and again it’s based on how fast the entire team can accomplish the feat.
“A superstar might do it in a minute, but this is what the team does,” Lewis said.
Another event involves a one-rope bridge.
“There are some big telephone poles in the ground down there, and everybody has to go across it and tear down the bridge on the far side to complete it,” Lewis said. “They do that somewhere in about two minutes.”
The entire team will then build a bridge, and each member has to cross it.
“It’s a very competitive event,” Lewis said. “The next thing they have is a cross country rescue, and what they have there is a litter, or a stretcher with a 90-pound sand bag full of litter, and six 40-pound ruck sacks to simulate a person, and the team has to carry that through various terrain, and up and down, basically like they rescuing someone that’s injured.”
The length of that particular course is 1.2 miles.
The last one involves the gauntlet, which has multiple stations, some with five-gallon cans of water; while somewhere else there is a heavy box, he said.
“You have to take those obstacles with you for a portion of the course, over obstacles, and things like that,” Lewis added. “It’s a very physically, demanding course. It kind of challenges you, completely.”
Several local groups have been invited to participate in the daylong event. They include: American Legion, the Georgia War Veterans Home, GMC Bulldog Club, Georgia National Guard, and GMC College ROTC.
