FORT BENNING, Ga., (April 13, 2016) -- Football players from the Columbus Lions and instructors from the Henry Caro NCOA Armor Advanced Leader Course worked together to tackle obstacles at the Leaders Reaction Course April 11.
The partnership between the Lions and NCOA sparked when head coach Jason Gibson and Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Ames, commandant of the Henry Caro NCOA, met and realized how much they had in common.
"We got to talking and we realized we're both in the same business of leader development," said Ames.
The two decided to join forces and have their Soldiers and players work through the Leaders Reaction Course together in order to deepen their understanding of teamwork and how to overcome adversity as a team.
"When it's sunny and 72, it's easy to be a leader, it's easy to be a team player. But when the chips are down, when it's a little more difficult, when the scoreboard has you behind; that's when it's really time to come together as a team and overcome that adversity," said Ames.
The Soldiers and players navigated their way through the course, encountering tasks such as maneuvering ammo across the water or getting their team from one side of the water obstacle to the other side with only a few pieces of wood and a rope.
The key to successfully completing the obstacles is to come together as team and try different approaches, said Ames.
"I think we all have our own ideas of how we can make it work, but at the end we all have to agree on the same thing otherwise it doesn't work- we learned that pretty quick in our first challenge," agreed Lions quarterback Casey Kacz.
After completing the obstacle course, the Soldiers and players took time to learn from each other by sharing their own lessons of adversity.
Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Grundy, Henry Caro NCOA Armor Advanced Leader Course branch chief, shared how being wounded during deployment helped him see strength through adversity in fellow patients while he recovered. Grundy said he hopes the players take the lesson he shared about his recovery and remember when they find themselves injured.
"They are going to get injured sometime their career, and there's going to be a point where they have to say, OK is this feasible for me make it through?" said Grundy. "There is a point in time where they are going to have to fish or cut bait, but at the same time there's an overlying factor where mentally, they can get over it, and then the physical part follows."
The Soldiers and their Families are invited to come out and cheer on the Lions at their next game on April 23 at the Columbus Civic Center.
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