The SDSU Police participated in a 120 mile-long race and placed sixth in their division.
For the fourth year in a row, the San Diego State University Police Department participated in the Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay race, helping the CSU statewide team to a 6th place finish in their division.
This year’s team included Captain Lamine Secka, Sergeant Ron Broussard, Corporals Nate Julien and Mark Peterson and community service officers Will Griffin and Josh Poe. With the six participants, five primary runners and one alternate, SDSU proudly represented more than 25 percent of the total team.
A strong finish
This year’s team finished the race in 17 hours and 27minutes, beating last year’s time by more than an hour. The top six teams all finished within 30 minutes of each other, and this year’s time was also the fastest in team history.
This year's team, led by Sgt. Mark Benavidez, attracted participation from 10 of the 23 CSU campuses, including:
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- Monterey Bay
- San Marcos
- Los Angeles
- Channel Islands
- Northridge
- Long Beach Fullerton
- Sacramento
About the Baker to Vegas Team Challenge
The Baker to Vegas Team Challenge started in 1985 as a means to provide a positive, competitive event for law enforcement officers to participate in that gives them additional motivation to maintain physical fitness, a key component to fulfilling their daily duties.
Over the more than 20 years the Challenge Cup/Baker to Vegas Relay has been run hundreds of thousands of law enforcement personnel have tread across the desert. The original ideals of the race continue: teamwork, camaraderie, physical fitness and competition.
A growing tradition
The event has expanded in many ways — most notably in entries and categories.
The number of teams has grown 14 fold from the first 19 teams in 1985, and the number of teams is now limited to 270. Categories have grown to include probation officers, district attorneys, U.S. attorneys and full time civilian police personnel. There are even a growing number of international teams that participate including teams from England, Australia, Germany and Canada.