Chance to be part of IU culture

The experience and jubilation of Little 500 allows for clubs throughout the IU community to come together and show their Hoosier spirit while gaining exposure for their individual groups at the same time.\nThis year, the men's and women's Army ROTC teams are looking to do just that.\n"Little 5 will exemplify the fact that we are here on campus," said Jonathan Grabill, a senior and captain of the men's team. "It will be a very positive experience, because if people don't know about us, they will see us out there."\nLt. Col. Wayne Pollard echoed Grabill's thoughts that the race will help publicize the IU Army ROTC program to the rest of the campus. But Pollard also supports the ROTC team's involvement because one of the program's graduates started the Little 500.\n"The real reason why we are participating is because Howdy Wilcox, who started the Little 5, is an Army ROTC graduate," Pollard said. "Hopefully Saturday, the day of the race, I will get the chance to meet him with our men and women's teams.\n"Howdy created the race to unify the campus and to give everybody a single purpose on the campus," he said. "I am looking for our cadets to be fully immersed in IU culture, and there is really no better way than to participate in Little 5."\nThe ROTC men's team consists of Grabill, senior Justin Goble and sophomores Andy Higgins and Chris Beck, all of whom are rookies to the race. This year will mark just the second year Army ROTC has qualified a team for the men's race. Last year Grabill was injured on the day before qualifications and the team failed to qualify. This year's team starts 24th.\nGrabill said he hopes the team's biking experience will help on race day, even though the riders haven't been in race situations such as the Little 500.\n"I expect everyone to do their best and for everyone to have a good time," Grabill said. "We are all kind of into cycling a little bit outside of Little 5, but we have never really been in competitions. I think we all have a good sense of what to do, because the IU Student Foundation helps out a lot with the Rider's Council, and we have talked to other veterans about what to expect."\nThe women's ROTC team is led by senior captain Adrienne Barker. Barker and seniors Rosemare Hirata, Christina Sandoval and Emily Birck are all Little 500 veteran riders. Junior Angela Cherry also trained and went through "Rookie Week" for the women's ROTC squad.\nBarker believes the experience the team gained from last year will help it heading into this year's race.\n"I think the fact that we do have the experience behind us is going to give us an upper edge on some of the other teams," Barker said. "It is just going to give us more of a comfort level since everything won't be so new to us. We are going to expect a lot of the accidents, and we are going to know what the inexperienced people are going to do, because we probably did it last year."\nLast year the women's Army ROTC squad started 27th and finished 29th. This year the women's team qualified 26th. Barker said she hopes the team can finish at least around 20th.\nFellow cadet member Casey Dean, a senior, is the team manager for the women's squad. Birck said Dean provides the team with encouragement and takes care of some of the little things it takes to field a team.\n"He is there more for motivational support and for getting all of the logistics together," Birck said. "He's a very upbeat guy and is really helping out with getting our battalion excited for the race"