Manatee High School’s JROTC Hurricane Raiders win state title

Manatee High School is no stranger to state championships and neither is the school’s JROTC program, which captured another state championship over the weekend at Camp Flaming Arrow in Lake Wales.

The ROTC program is divided into three categories, a shooting team, a drill team and the Raider program that features military-style activities such as obstacle courses, rope bridge crossings, a 5K rescue litter run and other competitions.

Retired Command Sgt. Major Thomas Zoch has run the Hurricane Battalion’s Raider program for the past 12 years after serving in the Army for 25 years as an elite Ranger. He has spent the last dozen years instilling military and Ranger philosophies into the school’s largest extracurricular activities with 375 students participating in the overall program.

Last year, his squad placed fifth overall, and that didn’t sit well with the team, which consisted mostly of juniors last year.

“I think the level of intensity in their training was the difference this year, knowing they didn’t bring our best game at that level last year,” Zoch said. “If you look at the scores of each event, it comes down to seconds that separates first, second and third. They trained hard on their own all year because school starts in August and first competition was Sept. 19. You can’t come back to school and work into training up. You have to be ready on day one.”

Each JROTC participant in the Raider program must sign a pledge to not let another Raider down. Zoch said his cadets take that pledge seriously.

“They know if they aren’t fulfilling their commitment to each other, they are letting each other down,” Zoch said.

Cadet commanders Brandon Sanchez and Colin Rottes are also defending state champions of the Raider Best Buddy competition. Sanchez said the JROTC program gave him a direction in life at a critical time.

“I was sitting in the front office when I was a freshman,” Sanchez said. “I knew I always wanted to join the Army but didn’t have a specific goal. The JROTC gave me that goal. Without a specific goal, you end up doing something you don’t want to do. Right now, I love what I’m doing. I was not a big kid my freshman year and have been moving around most of my life. Not part of a big family like the JROTC is to me now. It built me up from someone who could barely speak in front of people to being in charge of a company with more than 50 cadets.”

Sanchez will join the military after college and credits the program for teaching him how to be a leader and to take charge of his life. Rottes is already contracted to enter Ranger school when he graduates.

“I got an early look at the program because my brother was in it,” Rottes said. “I love doing the training and pushing myself. It’s a big family, and it creates a bond that you can’t get out of any other program. It’s a bond that lasts forever.”

It’s that bond that brought Zoch into leading the JROTC program.

“I myself was a ROTC cadet in a great high school program,” Zoch said. “It’s my mission to teach young people to be better citizens. I had the utmost respect for my ROTC instructors, and they came to many events in my life from when I made sergeant major to my retirement ceremony. I think we are a little different than other teachers. We teach from the school of hard knocks, teach life management skills, leadership and discipline.”

Zoch said those principles led his program to capturing another state championship.

“We ingrain Ranger principles from day one, and these cadets have the utmost commitment to that,” he said. “The Raider team is special in the way they commit to each other because they are family. They practice long and hard four days a week in the morning and afternoon. There is a lot of sweat and blood that goes into those practices.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 6:27 PM with the headline "Manatee High School’s JROTC Hurricane Raiders win state title."