Officers in training take fitness challenge

Criminal justice students place 2nd at event

Keeping in good health and fitness might be more important to law enforcement officers than it is to most people.

You never know when you'll have to jump out of your vehicle and spring into action after sitting for two hours, retired Grundy County Sheriff Deputy Craig Williamson said. That's one reason why Williamson, who now teaches Grundy Area Vocational Center's criminal justice classes, asked his students if they would like to participate in this year's Illinois National Guard Law Enforcement Challenge.

They did -- and came in second.

The National Guard piloted the challenge with three schools last year and put the event into full swing this year, with nine vocational and career schools competing in the categories of a 3-mile run, an obstacle course and a building-clearing exercise.

The other schools that participated were the Will County Career Center, Indian Valley Vocational Center, Kankakee Area Career Center, Lincolnland Technical Education Center, Livingston Area Career Center, and other institutions in Bloomington, Collinsville and Decatur.

The GAVC criminal justice program currently does not offer physical training, and students who volunteered to go were expected to be physically able to run 3 miles and to handle the various excercises of obstacle course.

Toni Childress, a Morris senior who participated in the challenge, said she is in pretty good shape and didn't have much trouble keeping up with the pace during the event. Anthony Lawless, another GAVC Morris senior, plays football and said they routinely run 2 miles during practice, so he was able to handle the 3-mile run.

Both students said they are going into the law enforcement field knowing they will be expected to keep in shape. It will be part of the job, they said.

Williamson said good cardiovascular conditioning is the most important part of training for law enforcement officers. It used to be that "big muscles" were the most emphasized, but today it's the cardiovascular.

"It's not so much brute strength anymore," he said. "Today, we have other tools and training we can use in place of that. Weight training is still good and is still important, but mostly it's the cardiovascular training."

The challenge was Oct. 13 at the Marseilles National Guard Training Facility. Events included the 3-mile run, with students carrying 25-pound backpacks; an obstacle course that included scaling a 7½-foot wall, crawling under barbed wire, running through a simulated grenade toss, running on balance beams, climbing a rope, going through a 3-foot tunnel, jumping over a 4-foot leaning wall, and scaling a platform.

The teams also had to complete a mission to rescue a hostage through several rooms of paintball gunfire and carry a "wounded" officer to safety.

Students who participated in the challenge attend the GAVC program from high schools in Morris, Minooka, Coal City and Gardner-South Wilmington. Participants included David Spinola, Shawn Schultz, Andrew Tuley, Joel Gotz, Anthony Lawless, Andy Oehlwein, Toni Childress, Katie Goudie, Eduardo Lopez, Jalen Grady, Joye Gentry, Matthew Stevens, Brandon Ford, Charles Phillips and Zach Entwistle.

Livingston Area Career Center finished first in the event, GAVC took second, Kankakee Area Career Center got third, and Bloomington Area Career Center finished fourth.