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It wasn’t until Andrew Stotts ’27 began acing his grenade throws that he realized he was a contender for the Recondo Badge, the Army’s highest cadet training award. 

Lobbing fake explosives at targets in the summer heat is just one of several tests at Cadet Training School’s Advanced Camp at Ft. Knox in Kentucky, a mandatory 31-day program that all ROTC students must pass in order to graduate into military service. 

Advanced Camp focuses on teaching students to problem solve under the fast-paced conditions of a military operation and developing the leadership skills required for an Army officer to lead other soldiers. 

Cadets are evaluated on how well they perform nine military skills over several days, including land navigation with a compass, marksmanship, first aid and a 12-mile foot march, which Stotts completed with a bruised and purple sprained ankle, he said. The Army awards points based on how well cadets finish each task. 

In the end, Stotts was the top earner in his training group and among the top 5% of all cadets nationwide. This year, nearly 6,000 cadets finished Advanced Camp. Of that group, 280 earned the Recondo Badge.  

To mirror the reality of a real military operation, cadets at Advanced Camp often undergo their exercises in extreme conditions or while sleep-deprived.

“It’s hard,” he said of the badge. “If you mess up one thing, you’re not getting it.” 

Stotts, a senior criminology major from Tampa, said he credits the University’s ROTC leaders, especially Master Sgt. Samuel Brown, for setting high standards for the program and motivating students to meet them. Stotts’ faith and family, particularly his dad, also deserve credit for his achievements, he said. 

Stotts came to UTampa after enlisting and serving in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division for three and a half years after high school. After his contract was up, he wanted to earn a bachelor’s degree and knew UTampa had a strong Army ROTC program, which he says has helped him meet new people as a student veteran. 

“It’s a great school. I like it a lot,” he said. “ROTC helps me feel connected.”

Although most ROTC cadets pursue active-duty assignments (17 of the 22 UTampa students who attended Cadet Training this summer plan to join the military as officers full time), Stotts is seeking a role in the Florida National Guard to continue living and working in his hometown. 

He is set to earn his bachelor’s in May but is already taking graduate classes to earn a master’s in criminology through the University’s 4+1, UTampa2UTampa program, which enables undergraduates to take graduate-level classes during their senior year. 

The Recondo Badge achievement is a significant one for UTampa’s Spartan Battalion, said Lt. Col. Will McMurrey, professor of military science, who leads the program. The training is intended to simulate real-world military exercises and is done under rigorous and demanding conditions, McMurrey said. 

“We are incredibly proud of Cadet Stotts’ summer achievements, and we challenge Cadet Stotts to support the skill development of peers,” he said. 

Lt. Col. Geoff Shorr, who is retiring from the Army and is McMurrey’s predecessor on campus, worked with Stotts last year as he prepared for summer training and said he was “relentless in his pursuit of excellence,” both academically and physically. 

Stotts was first in line to reflect and review his leadership strengths and weaknesses with him last spring, too, Shorr said. 

“He embodies the ‘never quit’ warrior ethos, and, equally important, he’s a great teammate.”

Ultimately, Stotts wants to take the skills he’s gaining in the classrooms of UTampa and the ROTC training fields and apply them to a career based in his hometown. 

“Most people compete for active-duty military roles, but I want a local job here in Tampa,” he said. 

He got a start on that before Advanced Camp, when he interned at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, splitting his time between patrol, dispatch and the jail. It was eye-opening, he said, and it helped him see how the large and complex agency runs. Now he wants to become a law enforcement officer with the agency. Giving back is the goal.

“I'm hoping to apply my military experience, leadership training and education to serve my local community.”