Correction: Mountain View High School’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps boys placed fourth in their category at the United States Marines Youth Foundation’s 2014 National High School and JROTC Physical Fitness Championships in San Diego. Because of incorrect information from the meet's organizer, the school was omitted from this article.
Tanner Windham is not planning to tell his boot camp instructors that he won a contest this summer that entitles him, were he so inclined, to declare himself the Most Fit High School Student in America.
Actually, it would be a bit of a relief to him if readers could just keep that fact under their hats -- at least until he has made it through the U.S. Naval Academy's seven-week "Plebe Summer."
"I'm not really the kind of person to brag about it, so I'm just going to kind of keep it on the down low. Stay incognito," he said June 26, three days before departing for Annapolis, Md. "I'll just stay undercover as long as I can."
But the 5-foot-11 18-year-old was happy to talk about how well his six-man team from the Junior Reserve Officer Training Program at Little Rock Catholic High School scored in the United States Marines Youth Foundation's 2014 National High School and JROTC Physical Fitness Championships.
"We finished second in the nation" May 15-17, he said. Furthermore, Windham's teammate Peyton Adams placed second overall. "And he's a sophomore. He really excelled."
The meet was on training fields at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego Teams competed in six timed events: full situps for two minutes (highest possible score was 100 situps); pushups for two minutes (highest score, 60); best of three standing long jumps executed within two minutes (9 feet, 10 inches earned the top score); pullups for two minutes without dropping off the bar (top score at 30 reps); 300 yard shuttle run (best possible score: 44 seconds).
Windham earned the highest possible score for the situps, pushups and pullups; his longest jump was one inch short of the maximum (he managed 9 feet, 9 inches) and his shuttle run took 48 seconds. All told, he scored 477 of a possible 500 points.
"Actually, everyone on the team maxed the situps and pushups," he said.
Thomas Hazlett of Gettysburg, Pa., chairman of the Marine Corps League's Youth Physical Fitness Program, said Wednesday that no other Arkansas schools competed at nationals.
Hazlett said 23 six-person teams from around the nation competed. The national meet does not admit co-ed teams. The winning male squad was from Sun Valley High School in Aston, Pa., and the winning women's team was from Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pa.
To qualify, each six-member squad first scored top points in regional competitions.
Windham was especially proud that the Rockets scored 30 points higher in the nationals than they had during the regional qualifier. He attributed their improvement to "just a lot of hard work.
"We train Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 6:30 in the morning before school. And then at lunch we usually do some running exercises," he said, explaining that Catholic High has two 30-minute lunch periods. The fitness team trains during one period and eats during the next.
Situps, pushups, pullups, jumps and sprints might be fair indicators of a body's overall conditioning, but a steady diet of only those exercises would break that body down. Windham suffered a rotator cuff injury just before the team went to nationals in his sophomore year at Catholic High, and his shoulder still bothers him once in a while.
He thinks that swimming has helped his shoulders and rounded out his fitness, and the workouts the fitness team undertakes include more than merely the competition movements.
"We did a variety of exercises to get stronger for those," he said.
Windham was team captain during his recently ended senior year and enjoyed helping to create tough workouts. But he emphasized that he was not in charge or a coach; he was an assistant to Junior Reserve Officer Training program director retired Sgt. Maj. Scott Jernigan. Being captain is about "just being there for the team," he said.
"The team mind-set definitely helps, because you're best friends with all of them," he said. "You have competing with each other, making each other better."
Windham estimated the team included 30 men from Catholic High and 20 women from Mount St. Mary Academy. (The Catholic girls high school did not send a team to the nationals this year, "but they've won the last two years," he said.)
The son of Tony and Rose Windham of Little Rock graduated as an A student, and, assuming he survives boot camp and does well in his Naval Academy courses, he wants to be a Navy pilot.
The JROTC program "really convinced me that that's what I wanted to do, to try to go to the Naval Academy," he said. "I worked hard and here I am."
ActiveStyle on 07/07/2014