BYU ROTC Dominates Ranger Challenge

Sports dynasties are commonly spoken of with admiration and fervor, and the band of brothers that competes in the ROTC Ranger Challenge is no exception.

Capt. David Jungheim, scholarship and enrollment officer, said BYU has won the Ranger Challenge 27 of the past 29 years — the other two years the team took second place. Held in October at Camp Williams, BYU won first in the competition yet again.

Each fall, a team of 12 cadets from the BYU ROTC competes against other ROTC programs in the region to become the champions. The winning team also receives a bid to the international Sandhurst competition at West Point.

Jonathan Argyle, a junior studying public health from Renton, Wash., said cadets put in more than 20 hours a week training for an event that lasts about five hours.

“I had an uncle who did the army ROTC when he came here,” Argyle said. “He said, ‘If you really want to see what it’s like, try Ranger Challenge.’ ”

This year, 13 schools from the region competed, including the University of Utah, Utah State, University of Wyoming, Colorado State and University of Colorado-Boulder.

Argyle said there is significant pressure that comes from being No. 1.

“There is the added pressure from the other teams because every team is gunning for us,” Argyle said. “I was talking to a friend that goes to University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and he said that every team here is probably coming after you guys. It’s a lot of pressure because there is a great excitement if a team beats us and we don’t want that to happen.”

This year, the Ranger team was younger than usual. Four first-year cadets made the team. Five second-year cadets also were on the team, most of whom had just returned from serving LDS missions.

John Bomsta, a senior studying biophysics from Bear Lake, Idaho, said this did not adversely affect the team.

“One of the comments from another team was, ‘You guys aren’t anything special, you have a bunch of 1s and 2s on your team,’ ”  Bomsta said. “It’s real people doing extraordinary things, not super heroes on the Ranger Challenge team.”

The challenge itself takes place over a two-day period. Before the competition, the cadets must take a land navigation test and pass the army standard physical fitness test.

This year a series of skills were performed during the contest, including building a rope bridge to cross the Jordan River.

This article was originally published in the Daily Universe on November 1, 2010.