Legacy’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, JROTC, competed at Mansfield High School Oct. 4 for their first color guard competition of the year.
“It’s very nerve racking when you’re seeing all of the schools inside and outside of Mansfield,” Cadet Major Camden Smith, 11, said. “You’re watching people you’ve never seen before and they seem more professional than you do when performing.”
They placed fourth out of eight schools, earning a score of 406 points. With Alvarado ISD placing first and Japaro ISD placing last. Points are given to each school by performance and skill. Failure to stay in sync with the team or following the wrong command results in the loss of points. The team can also lose points if the Commander of the Color Guard, Lars Haagen, 10, forgets part of his speech. Haagen’s job includes speaking to the judges and giving commands to the rest of the team.
“Our goal was to learn and adapt to something we hadn’t done before,” Haagen said. “Going in, we wanted to place high in the competition, this is just the start for us.”
The judges focus on multiple aspects of the competition and performances. They look at the teams marching, rifle commands, basic JROTC movements, turns, appearance of uniform and make sure the cadets hair follows regulations.
“The day had some highs and lows,” Haagen said. “The place was hectic to say the least, but we found our way.”
At the beginning of the competition, Haagen gives the judges a formal report, which contains their school name, what school they’re from and what event they’re there for. After Haagen concludes his formal report to the judges, he will state that the team stands ready to start their routine. The judges expect Haagen to remember the correct sequence of his speech or it will cause the reduction of points from their performance.
“The purpose of doing this competition was to get introduced to competing in general,” Haagen said. “We have to be prepared for our bigger competitions coming up.”
JROTC will compete in many more competitions with the end goal of making it to the national competition in Florida May 2-3, 2026.
“It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake,” Smith said. “How you recover and learn from it is what is most important.”
