Air Force team trains for 1st Little 500 qualifications

Wing Cadet Kevin Skelton means business.

As the highest-ranking cadet at IU, he walks around campus in uniform and expects a salute and a greeting from every cadet he encounters.

But nine cadets know a less-strict side of Skelton the rest have not seen: his college-kid side.

These nine cadets, along with Skelton, make up the men’s and women’s Air Force teams trying to qualify for this year’s Little 500.

“When we’re in uniform doing Air Force business, I’m in charge, and they all know it,” Skelton said. “But at the track and during workouts, I made it very clear to them at the beginning of the semester, I was like ‘Hey, I’m your coach, I’m your friend. I’m not your commander right now, but still treat me with respect.’ Every once in a while, to be funny, they’ll throw in a ‘Sir.’”

Skelton used his training and authority from the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps to fuel his creation of these Little 500 teams.

Sophomore Ashley Doyle is one of the cadets Skelton recruited for the women’s AFROTC team. Doyle is a cadet third class, and as team captain, she understands the AFROTC’s importance.

“We are such a close unit and family in the ROTC community that we’re really good
friends, so it’s really easy to get through to one another and to teach each other what you’re doing wrong or what you need to do,” Doyle said.

Doyle will attend field training this summer, which will determine what she will one day do with the Air Force. But for now, she and her teammates are hoping to represent their branch of the Armed Services in the Little 500.

“We’re pretty sure we’ll qualify, but we want to have clean exchanges on the quals run,” Doyle said. “There are already nerves. Everybody’s a little jittery, really excited, not really sure what to expect. We think we’re going to do really well. We just need to make sure everybody is calmed down and not overly excited when we go out there.”

Training five days per week, Skelton has no doubt his team is in top physical shape. He said he believes this so much that he had them exempt from physical training and designed his own workouts, which he said makes it easier for him to coach than any other team.

“All of them have scored 90 or above on the Air Force physical fitness test, so they’re definitely in better shape than a regular cadet would be,” he said. “It is a lot easier, I think, coaching these Air Force teams than if I was just coaching a frat team or a dorm team, where they’re just regular students.

“They’re not cadets that are conditioned with the ‘Yes, Sir,’ ‘No, Sir.’ If I tell them to go do a workout, they might not like it ... but they’re not going to be like ‘Oh, we don’t want to do that.’ They’re going to do it because I told them to — because I outrank them and they have respect.”

Skelton is also the only member of either Air Force team to have ridden in the Little 500. Junior Julian Londono does not have race experience, but as a cadet captain and future Air Force pilot, he is excited for qualifications to show the other cadets what he and his teammates have done.

“I think it feels great to represent the Air Force and all the 80 cadets that are in the Air Force ROTC right now,” Londono said. “It’s a great way to start a team that we’ve never had and hopefully be able to carry it throughout the years and have a strong team for Little 500 for years to come.”

Skelton said his focus is to make AFROTC a presence on campus. Last semester, he was involved in the first Air Force group for IU Dance Marathon. Skelton said the presence of an independent organization in greek-dominated events is important.

“I think the Air Force cadets, as a whole, don’t really realize how huge this event is at IU,” Skelton said. “It’s an enormous event. Whether it’s crappy weather and pouring rain or sunny out, there are 20,000-plus people there.

“Every organization is represented, every greek house has a team out there and there are all these dorms and what not. And to have an Air Force cycling team, it’s a really big deal. Not just to our cadets but the rest of the University to say that we are here, we’re not just here to walk around in uniform and pop salutes at each other, we’re here involved in these community activities.”