Discussion: Thanks GAOC

Thanks to all the GAOC volunteers (and also the small but dedicated crew who puts together the Extreme O each year) for a job well done! This was a great meet, well organized, with challenging courses. Well done!

The atmosphere, execution, course design, terrain, and weather were all excellent. Thanks!

Yes, excellent event. Thank you GAOC!

Definitely worth the trip, thanks GAOC! Some day I will have a chance to stick around for the extreme-o.

btw, head-cam video from saturday is here

Ken, can we repost your head-cam video to the Georgia Navigator Facebook page?

Yeah, no problem.

Very well-run event, GAOC; thanks! That was my first GNC, but definitely won't be my last.

Agree with all of the above!

It was especially gratifying to see so much youth participation, with a great deal of credit going to the JROTC leaders who trained and brought them. I'm looking forward to seeing many of those kids applying to the Junior National Team (JNT) in the not-too-distant future.

It was so fun. The woods was nice. The courses were good. And the weather!

Also, it was well organized. Thanks to all the volunteers. Great job!

In the past, it has been easy to just skip the GNC. But I'm leaning more and more to never miss it.

Great meet as always. Well organized and that Park! Routegadget is up and ready. I just put my route choices up for Day 2 Green Y

Although the map used was way too generalized , and very old, the courses avoided the worst of it, and overall the meet was fine, imo. One disturbing moment was for me looking at the rituals and drills of those junior militarized units. I feel very sad for the kids brainwashed from this young age. I feel that orienteering --under USOF auspice at least--should remain civil, non-militarized activity, and people who come to the meet should not get exposed to those aggressive practices, which should be confined to the boot camps behind barbed wire.

http://orienteering.org/events/?event_id=417
http://www.usma.edu/gene/sitepages/oteam.aspx

@yurets - in Georgia, the only structured junior orienteering programs are provided by JROTC. My son came though a Navy JROTC program. I don't think he was brainwashed.

Without JROTC, junior orienteering would be non-existent in Georgia.

I wish we had some non-JROTC based junior orienteering programs. But the fact is we don't.

Maybe someone with your skills and talents could start one?

Connor's (Bob-F's son) lack of brainwashing is evidenced by the fact that he quit JROTC, when it became no longer supportive of his orienteering interests...

Ok, maybe we can take this in a productive direction (and this should probably happen in a different thread). I thought it was great seeing all the JROTC kids at the Navigator Cup. A lot of them were excited about orienteering, were running hard, cheering each other, going over courses after the races. I think GAOC does a great job of attracting them and organizing events for them.

But my question is: why do the vast majority of them disappear from orienteering after high school and what can be done to change that?

"Without JROTC, junior orienteering would be non-existent in Georgia." Plus 1. Maybe even in the entire south.

Matt Stout, Austin Fowler, and Edwin Villatoro benefitted hugely from a JROTC O Coach, Amy Williams. She welcomed non-cadets to join her group and there was never any of that hoo-rah stuff. Different JROTC coaches run things differently.

As far as retention goes, we had 5 former GAOC high schoolers competing at the GA Nav: Matt Stout (GA Tech), Austin Fowler (Berry), Edwin Villatoro (GA Tech), Connor Frost (UGA) and John Williams (USMA).

Also don't forget Sholanda Snell, who came into O through JROTC. Many of our best young orienteers got their starts through JROTC. And many of our most active organizers and volunteers got their starts through college ROTC orienteering programs back in the 70's.

That said, I coach a non JROTC school team, and if Yurets and others want to follow that model, I am happy to offer advice and assistance.

Sholanda is still in HS. However, I fully expect she will continue after high school. I also expect our current male HS standout, Noah Van Gorder, will continue after high school. Both Sholanda and Noah are seniors.

That's excellent. I am really happy to hear that some of the juniors are sticking with O after high school, and that GAOC has a great support system for them. Keep up the good work!

For those not looking at the GNC FB page, here's a repost: "Interesting stat form the GNC 2015 registration counts: Sat/Sun participation was 94 adults and 236 juniors each day."

Why do the vast majority of them disappear from orienteering after high school and what can be done to change that?

It's not just cadets. Up here in the northwest corner, I've noticed the same thing with our juniors (our WIOL program currently has about 200 kids, about half of which are affiliated with JROTC). Obviously, we retain some of the kids (CascadeOC's relay championship team of Eric, Will, and Tori are all WIOL alumni), and I can name several others who continue to participate here and elsewhere. But a vast majority do not.

But then I look back at all of the stuff that I did as a kid, and I don't do much of that anymore. I was on the tennis team in high school. I've played 3 times in the past 9 years. I played in various school and youth symphonies from 4th-12th grades. Haven't really touched a cello since. I think that it's completely normal for kids, especially high-achieving kids, to stop doing a lot of things they did as a kid once they start college and beyond. How many of you are still doing the same activities now that you were doing as a kid?

Obviously, there are examples who stick with orienteering, but the percentages are really low, as I would expect they would also be for other childhood activities. How many youth vs. adults play in a band/orchestra? How many youth vs. adults play team sports? We're talking percentages here. Orienteering's retainment may be similar, percentage-wise, but it's just that we have so few people participating to start.

For me, the only organized activity I can think of that's the same is baseball/softball. I played Little League baseball from about 1987-1992, and I've been playing rec league softball 2005-present.

Hehe, I've been orienteering non-stop since I was 9 and have never seriously considered stopping, so I am the wrong person to ask, but you certainly make a good point. However, retention at least through college has to be something we can improve on...

@ bobf: Sholanda is still in HS but no longer running for the school JROTC team.

...and among the older generation, many of us got started through college ROTC sponsored clubs, even though only a few were in the ROTC program.
Eric Weyman, Mark Frank, Dave Pruden, Dave Linthicum(?) and many others I am less sure about.
...and to say nothing of the US Marine Corp support before that, Don Davis, BobTurbyfill... feel free to help me out with names.

All sources of support and sponsorship deserve our respect.

I agree with yurets, it would be nice to remove the military tie-in with the sport. And just promote the elation of running through the natural world á la ken's excellent head-cam video. Many of us don't agree with the US's militaristic activities since 9/11, and are working to redirect our country's focus. Isn't it possible that such military activities and saber-rattling tends to brainwash us ALL?

Since JROTC and other military training units have such a poor long-term record for developing orienteers, perhaps OUSA should establish some guidelines for discouraging their participation as uniformed groups, but rather as individuals, interested only in being "at one with nature."

Hang on...

I don't think there are significant numbers of students who are interested in orienteering, but find that the only way to get involved is to join JROTC. It's the other way around, they're already in JROTC and that's how they get their introduction to orienteering. I don't think we'd want to exclude students from orienteering because they are in a JROTC program. If somebody wants to start up a non-JROTC orienteering school program, that's great, but I can see no reason to send the JROTC groups away.

I'm actually a counterexample to what I said in the first line: I was in college, I was interested in orienteering, and the only opportunity I could find was to take a seminar taught by the ROTC department (for which I didn't need to enroll in ROTC). It got me started in orienteering, and I can't see that listening to Sgt. Bell did me any harm.

Clark, I don't see how excluding any particular group from our sport based on their beliefs serves any of the purposes you advocate...

HS programs regardless of JROTC or other like the one Mike runs are great and either one can produce long term results if the college Orienteering Programs were in place like the used to be. I think quite a few of the Old (ie experienced) found orienteering through some college program when it was stronger. At some point in time these college programs gradually faded from the landscape. HS kids go off to college and have no local support so lose interest. Post college is a bit easier since quite a few clubs are in cities.

"I agree with yurets, it would be nice to remove the military tie-in with the sport."

I mean the sport began in the military and map-reading remains an essential skill for any soldier or officer. So I don't see this happening, unless you want to deny people participating.

"Isn't it possible that such military activities and saber-rattling tends to brainwash us ALL?"

Most of my USMA buddies actually found the JROTC pump-up to be humorous--not only did it remind us of our training days but also it showed exactly how not to prep for a thinking sport.. But ultimately we still respected them as aspiring servicemen and women. Honestly, I think it's that poor civilian-military relationship that's driving these groups away permanently. Some talented individuals stick around but the majority don't because the sport doesn't promote ROTC competitions or recruit JROTC groups often. Perhaps a hint of unfriendliness and lack of understanding may play a role as well. Maybe USMA should start doing some war chants :)

Congratulations Yurets on a completely -and probably unintentionally- hijacked thread.
I've heard from Florida team leaders -JROTC all - that their students who were mostly experiencing contour dominated terrain for the first time really enjoyed the experience. Thank you GAOC.
As to the GA dominated results perhaps it is time that FLO, GAOC, Vulcan and the NC clubs talked about taking the SEIC on the road.....

I can only guess something about one's background that might cause an extra aversion to military practices they see among the JROTC. I see the marshaling of teams, the fatigues and the calisthenics among some JROTC at Florida Suncoast events. To me it doesn't look so different than the pre-game rituals that one might see on a football field. Only the uniforms are different.
As others have said I see students, hundreds of students, who would not get a chance to orienteer or even hear about orienteering if it weren't for the support system of the JROTC and the selfless leaders and parents who bring them to events throughout the school year.
I also see many young men and women who probably would not ever get a chance to be part of a school team if it were not for the JROTC and their competitive programs including orienteering. I see the pride they have and the support they get from their teammates when they successfully complete a course and if they are among the six (3 males/ 3 females) of perhaps 80 or so on a course that win a medal then that is really something to tell the parents. In JROTC everyone stays around to support the prize winners. In 'civilian' orienteering only the prize winners stick around to support the prize winners - and that only until they get their own prize.
Why is the JROTC retention rate in orienteering so low? Probably our clubs cannot offer anything close to the support system that the JROTC does.
Probably it is because we do not even try to reach out to graduating students to let them know they are welcome at orienteering events.
Perhaps it is because they look around at the non-social aspect of civilian orienteering and say to themselves 'that's no fun'.
What can we do to grab/ retain JROTC orienteers once they graduate?
I've suggested two ideas that seem to have fallen on deaf ears. One is to ask the JROTC leaders where their graduating cadets will be the next year and see if we can match them up with a club in the area. For example if a cadet orienteer from Ocala FL will be heading to UNC could we not help introduce them to the Backwoods OC? And could not BOC spend a dime to reach out to that college freshman looking to make a new circle of friends?
The second idea is that (in this case) Florida Orienteering arrange to distribute letters to all graduating cadet orienteers granting them a one year free membership in the association with an invitation to all the upcoming events and how they can sign up for ride sharing, etc.
Those are great young men and women in the JROTC programs. Their training is more about citizenship and service than it is about military techniques and 'brainwashing'. Believe me: you want them in your club. They are the ones, when you ask if they can help pick up the control flags after an event, who will reply "how many, sir?"

Thanks Gord, and others.

Gord, I like your suggestions a lot. Thanks for sharing!