November 24, 2004

Army trains Olympic athletes

Soldiers in sports program speak at Central High

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       The Army World Class Athlete Program - never heard of it?
      Join the crowd, as this little publicized program often slips under the radar when the Army is thought of or discussed.
      Two representatives from the program, which is based in Colorado Springs, Colo., visited Traverse City Central High School Friday afternoon. Sergeants James Johnson and Darrell Rydholm spoke to hundreds of students about how they have merged their Army and athletic endeavors.
      The Army's soldier-athlete program fielded 22 athletes at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, participating in sports ranging from track and field, shooting, wrestling, boxing and fencing. These athletes took five medals, noted Rydholm, adding that Army participants in the last Winter Olympics did much better.
      "We have a lot of people who achieve their ultimate goal because of the Army," said Rydholm, who is a member of the Taekwondo team.
      Basically, these soldier athletes are paid to train, not in tanks but in the sport at which they have proven themselves a world class athlete.
      "My real job is I shoot tanks but I'm not going to go shoot tanks in Iraq when I can be in Colorado training for the Olympics," said Johnson, who is in the wrestling program.
      Out of approximately 1.3 million members of the Army, 80 are in WCAP, as it is know in Army lingo. Although neither Rydholm nor Johnson qualified for the Olympic team this year, they relish the opportunity to train with the best of the best in the country.
      "It's the best job in the Army," said Rydholm, a native of El Paso, Texas.
      After high school, Rydholm started college right away but soon realized he was not mature enough and joined the Army. He competed on various Taekwondo teams, eventually winning a place on the Armed Forces Team.
      "Right before I got out [of his first hitch], the Army offered me this program and I've been competing with the best in the world for the past three years," he said. "I came to talk to you guys to let you know everything you see in the Army is not the whole Army, we wanted to show you something else."
      Johnson has a similar story: eschewing college after high school for the Army and gaining attention for his wrestling prowess. He won the All-Army trials and wound up in WCAP, a program with roots dating back to the early 1900s. Future General George Patton was a soldier athlete in the 1912 summer Olympics.
      Between 1948 and 2000, 415 Army athletes - drawn from regular Army, National Guard and Reserves - have brought home 102 Olympic medals. The Army established the WCAP program in 1978 and formalized the selection, training and support program. The Navy, Air Force and Marines also have elite athlete training opportunities.
      "If a soldier in the military has the potential to be on the Olympic team, we will develop them," Rydholm said. "This is for team sports as well as individual sports."
      Spc. Evan Cole, a 2002 Central High School graduate home from Iraq on emergency leave, also visited the school that afternoon. Cole has been stationed in Iraq for the last nine months and left Traverse City Monday to return to his posting. He fielded students' questions on the situation in Iraq as well as mundane issues of what the soldiers eat and what the bathrooms are like.
      "It is very interesting over there, most of the country is pretty calmed down except one of the hotbeds," said Cole of the big picture. "We are making a difference over there."