WMU, CMU ROTCs run with game ball

By Fritz Klug
News Editor

The first play in Saturday’s football game against Western Michigan University and Central Michigan University was when CMU Army ROTC cadets passed the game ball to WMU cadets in Ionia. Then there was the 65.1-mile run back to Kalamazoo.
“[The Rivalry Run] shows that we, and our counterparts over at Central, can work as a team, regardless of the fact that our schools are rivals” Michael Marsh, a senior at WMU, said.

The Run was revived last year when WMU’s ROTC ran the ball halfway to Mt. Pleasant.

The ball left Mt. Pleasant at 3:30 p.m. Friday and was handed over to WMU cadets at midnight. From there, the first group of 12 carried the ball to Hastings, where the second group took it 33 miles back to campus.

“We do what we can do, now the football team has to finish it,” Marsh said. “I would take this for a touchdown, but I’ve already ran with it for five miles”

The ball was relayed back and forth between two-person teams; one team passes the ball to another.
The fourth leg of the run was mostly down the flat, country roads of M-43.

“The craziest part was running from the boondocks to the city,” said Ben Simmons, a WMU freshman.
Many cadets described the run as relaxing and serene, for WMU freshman Mike Edens, the best part was running with his friend Paul Fitzpatrick.

“He was always yelling ‘C’mon dude, you can do it, you can push it,’” Edens said.

“When you think about it, when you’re in the front lines, you rely on that guy next to you.”
For Edens, the entire ROTC program has been the best experience he has had so far at WMU.

“It gives you a whole different perspective on life,” Edens said. “You learn how to fight, but you also learn great morals, you learn how to be a man or a woman, respect others, respect elders, and work with people who are younger than you, help them learn.”

The Rivalry Run represented much of that.

“[The Run] represents a building of character,” Edens said. “We all volunteered to do it, no one was told. It was a nice camaraderie. It was [us] coming together and pushing each other to the limit.”

The game day ball arrived at the Oakland Drive campus at 9:45 a.m. as students were beginning to tailgate.

The second phase of the run was completed at 3:15 when the cadets delivered the ball to Waldo Stadium before the coin toss.

“Rivalries are rivalries between football teams, but soldiers are soldiers always,” senior Steven Oganyan said.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Oct 18 2009. Filed under Breaking, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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