Discussion: NJROTC Nationals

NJROTC Nationals is not listed here. How does one find any information? The best I've found is this note on the BAOC site:

Note: A 2-day event for NJROTC championship teams will be held the weekend of March 12–13 at Joseph D. Grant County Park. That event is by invitation only, but the BAOC event on Sunday (i.e., the event described on this page) is open to the public.

Just because an event is by invitation only doesn't mean it should be kept a secret. WOC event bulletins are available to the public even though they can't enter.

As an OUSA board member who recalls the NJROTC establishment asking for our blessing to hold this event and to support it annually, I find it very annoying that event announcements and results are rarely easy for non-NJROTC affiliated orienteers to find.

What if I'd like to spectate? What if I'd like to help?

(Rant over)

I have been asking the same question.

I remember the same issue when the NJROTC champs were held in Maryland & I was one of the course-setters. Didn't appear on the QOC list even as something people might want to know about. And that was probably 10 years ago.

Hi, Claire. Thanks for pointing this out. I have added the NJROTC Championships to the calendar.
If anyone would like to come and help, you're more than welcome. Let me or Dan Ingram know.
Edit: Website link removed.

I hope many of the top NJROTC teams will be coming out to Cincinnati 3-weeks later to take on the other JROTC branches at 2022 Junior Nationals / Flying Pig XXIV.

Guy, It is not likely many of them will make the trip. They may not even know about it.
Teams in the east are already spending a great wad of money to get to the Navy Nats. They are not likely to turn around and make another trip unles it ccan be by car or van.
However thanks to the web link origamiguy provided the Junior Nat organizers can find the contact information for all the teams going to the Navy Nationals.
It would not take much for the Junior Nat origanizer to fire off inforrmtion and a link to all of those teams. In fact knowing Mike I bet it has already been done.
Because as a great man once wrote, "If you don't ask (invite) you won't get."
Besides that, your link sucks. It first takes one to the Attack Point mention of the Junior Nats and when one clicks on the 'event website' link it goes to the OCINN club homepage where there is ABSOLUTELY NO REFERRAL to the Junior Nationals event.
WAIT: I took a second look and found information about the Flying Pig buried in the local schedule with scarcely a mention of the Junior Nationals.
Marketing folks. Marketing: "Sell the sizzle; not the steak"

Yeah, Charlie B that is exactly what I mean! Where's the sizzle?

But back to the Navy Nationals.
You all must remember that this is not a public event. It is run by the Navy JROTC for the Navy JROTC usually if not always with the help of a local orienteering club.
Florida Orienteering has done all the technical work for two NNOCs in Florida and I have my eyes on an area for Suncoast Orienteering to help with the next one. It is an absolute breath of fresh air to be involved with some 400 young men and women representing schools from most of the country. Hint to O clubs: find out if you have Navy JROTC in your area and if you do offer them help if they want to bring the NNOC to the area. You will have a blast organizing an event where you do not have to look over your shoulders at critics and armchair quarterbacks like the ones who occasionally post comments to Attack Point.
To the best of my recollection I have never seen OUSA involved except possibly they were when Valerie Meyer brought SI equipment to Florida and that turned out convincing many that they never wanted to run a pin-punch event again.
That BAOC is having a public event in the same park on the same day good for them but folks that attend: stay out of the way of the cadets. They are competing in a national championships and any innocent help could end up screwing the results.

Guy, do you have a flyer or something that I can print out and post for the Junior Champs?

I have been requested to remove the link to the NJROTC champs, as it links to private information about juniors and leaders and I have done so.

The BAOC event on Sunday will use the courses used by the cadets on Saturday. The cadets will be on different courses on Sunday.

I have been requested to remove the link to the NJROTC champs, as it links to private information about juniors and leaders

A nice illustration why USOF should not let anyone (Navy, boy-scouts, "educators" from Massachussetts etc. ) set the rules or endorse orienteering.

Origami, here is a promo flier for the Junior Nationals:

Looks like they have updated the site to remove / protect the personal info.

To all,

I am the organizer for the NJROTC National Orienteering Competition 2022. There have been several comments that could have been easily answered if you reached out to Ron Hojnowski, the contact person for JROTC on the OUSA website youth programs page. He is also a NJROTC Senior Naval Science Instructor. He is very involved in the NNOC 2022 as he is bringing teams to the event. I know that Ron would answer any questions you had and would have reached out to me if he needed answers he could not provide.

All of my team members, school club members etc. are OUSA members. I try to take them to as many NREs that we can travel to. All of my students would love to go to OUSA Junior Nationals, but like Gord said it comes down to money. Not many NJROTC programs have the funds to make two long distance trips each year.

So how do we get where the NJROTC orienteering students can only have one choice? Well it is pretty simple as long as OUSA can handle another 300 or so students at Junior Nationals and the NJROTC programs get a good understanding of the how Junior Nationals is run.

Maybe OUSA (Ron H. and the President), approach NJROTC headquarters with a proposal to hold NJROTC nationals as part of the OUSA Junior nationals each year. Junior nationals already has a category for JROTC, I’m pretty sure they could figure out who the top NJROTC runners are, top NJROTC teams are from the results etc. the NJROTC area responsible for the NJROTC nationals would provide organization assistance to OUSA and provide the awards to be given out to the NJROTC winners. This could be a big win for OUSA in that it will bring in more juniors to OUSA with a steady number joining each year and hopefully maintaining them the rest of their lives. Not to mention the possibility of finding future stand outs for Team USA etc.


I am willing to assist in any way if OUSA sees this as a viable option.

Thanks Chief Dan, I'd also be willing to help in any way possible.

I know that many in OUSA would like to have a better connection with Navy JROTC, a better understanding of your Nationals, and to support their local NJROTC teams.

My bad...
I did not check the link on the Pig/Jr Natls AP page before posting.
I just A$$umed that when the full site goes live, the link to it would definitely be on the AP page.

The biggest difference (IMO) between NJROTC Natls & OUSA Junior Natls is that the latter is an open -- ie, no qualifying required -- competition. Titles -- both individual -- and team are, however, restricted to OUSA members.

Whether Junior Nationals could handle another 300 competitors or so is, I think, at best an open question. That would push the event from being merely somewhat larger, in terms of competitor numbers, than other US Championships, to being roughly as large as a highly successful North American Championships. Suddenly a lot of venues would no longer have sufficient parking and other aspects of event logistics would also be more challenging, possibly making the event too big a lift for many clubs that could manage either an NJROTC Champs or a Junior Nationals alone. So while it would be cool to have all the competitive juniors at the same event it may be for the best that the two competitions remain separate.

Of course having all the JROTC contingent bused to the National Juniors Champs is not a good decision. Typically there are just a few cadets that--based on their observed interest, motivation and performance-- the local club might encourage (or even support) to go compete, as a USOF member--not a "WarEagle" , at the national level.
I recall in old days to compete "officially", i.e. to be eligible for the title, a M19 junior had to pass the test of finishing below 17:30 at 5000m track and field.

Will splits or the link to results be posted - either here or publicly on BAOC's site?

NNOC 2022 Results

Splits for Saturday's Race can be found on WinSplits

Hard to tell from the abbreviations, but I *think* I recognize three local teams. And well done, Ava Suhocki, second Varsity Female!

You can find the full names of the schools in the start times section and then match them to the 4 letter abbrevs.

I recognize the names--- #3, 5, and 6 top males are from Georgia.
Very decent performance, IMO.

Gordhun, those Florida hotshots you mentioned, are they in top 10?

I don't know if the NJROTC courses are up on RouteGadget. However, BAOC ran the Saturday NJROTC courses, plus the other three courses that they didn't run, on Sunday. So you can take a look at the maps here.
http://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&...
Certainly these were a lot hillier than a lot of the kids were used to.

Yurets,
None of the Florida hotshots were at the Navy Nationals. A couple have hopes of being at the Jr Nats but it seems most need a lot more lead time to get ready and block the time to go to a big event than I thought was needed.
Can you imagine our two best girls won't go because one is the president of the prom committee and they have their big event not that weekend but the next weekend? The other has a university visit on the schedule, at least it is a university where she could have some reasonable chance of getting orienteering going (again).

Just seeing the full names of the schools confirms that they are the ones I thought they were. Nice to see them traveling all the way to California!

Gordhun, I am siding with Florida girls. The prom beats Nationals, easily, and mere one week is ridiculously little time --- at least a month is needed to prepare for this milestone event.

Ha Yurets! A month. I'm sure the Prom committee has been working away on that event since they were elected. That would have been last Spring or maybe as late as September. I tried to convince our young star that by now, as president, she should have every job delegated and she could coast to the prom but she did not buy that.