Pace High NJROTC wins back-to-back national championships. This is the key to its success

Football, baseball and basketball may be the extracurriculars people typically associate with high schools, but there is a competitive expectation brewing in Pace High School's Naval JROTC program.

Earlier this month, the school finished first — for the second year in a row — at the Navy National Academic, Athletic and Drill Championship at NAS Pensacola, a national competition of the 25 best Naval JROTC programs in the country after they qualified among a field of over 600 schools.

The competition is broken down into 10 metrics. Pace finished in the top five for every category.

In addition to the repeat national title, this is the sixth consecutive year Pace has competed at the event. Even so, 1st Sgt. John Baker, Pace's naval science instructor, said he did not want to get ahead of himself by calling it a dynasty.

"Our legacy is built on everybody that's come before us," Baker said.

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The competition was conducted in a virtual setting last year when Pace won the national title, and Baker said that made it particularly special this spring when they were able to win it in person.

"We didn't want anybody thinking we were just virtual champions and that we weren't as good as what the record says," Baker said. "And so that was important to us to do it in-person."

Pace's results at the 2022 competition are as follows:

• 5th in Sit Ups

• 1st in Push Ups

• 2nd in 100 yard relay

• 5th in Unarmed Basic Drill

• 2nd in Armed Basic Drill

• 1st in Unarmed Exhibition Drill

• 3rd in Armed Exhibition Drill

• 2nd in Armed Basic Drill

• 1st in Color Guard

• 2nd in Academics

Baker — who served in the U.S. Marine Corps — has been at Pace for 10 years. He and his cadets have pinned their continued success on the internal leadership and willingness to compete and work for each other.

"I don't want them to do (something) because I told them to do it. I want them to want to do it. I want them to want to work for each other, and want each other to win for each other," Baker said.

One senior in the program, Nicklaus Fielder, transferred to Pace during his high school career. He said the mentorship in the NJROTC program was a distinguishing piece of the unit's culture.

"Something that I see that's different here than from (my previous school) is there's a lot of cadet involvement with other cadets, peer-to-peer relationships, especially within our own classes and within the mentors that we have above us," Fielder said. "So that's something that's really strong."

Baker and his cadets also emphasized the fact that the Navy JROTC program is not strictly for those who want to pursue military involvement after high school. However, Baker said, about half of his students were raised in military backgrounds.

"A common misperception is that we're a military program. We're a citizenship and leadership program. We have military tools, two retired military instructors, but Caitlin (Proper) is our top position. Jocelyn (Brock) is our second position, and neither of them have ever had the desire to enter the military," Baker said.

Proper, the unit's cadet commanding officer at Pace, said part of the selling point to join for her was actually to become slightly less shy.

"I want to push myself and do a little bit more," Proper said.

Another senior in the program, Madison Rhodes, spoke to the fact that NJROTC added an important layer to her high school experience.

"I had a lot of motivation to get good grades. But this unit kind of brought a little more spice to my life; gave me something to actually look forward to coming into school," Rhodes said.

In addition to the competition success, the Pace Naval JROTC program was named the "Most Outstanding Unit" in the country last year, a title that is determined through a combination of community service, honor-roll percentage, fitness tests, standardized tests, college enrollment post-high school, competition results, GPA and middle-school involvement.

"They're always willing to support the school in any way that we ask them," said Pace High School Principal Stephen Shell, adding that the banners and trophies the program has earned are a confirmation of its success.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pace High School Navy JROTC wins second consecutive national championship