Princeton fire lieutenant Eli VanAutreve reaches the coveted ‘Lion’s Den’

The first time Eli VanAutreve competed in the Firefighter Challenge in 2019, it hit him like a ton of bricks.

He thought he was ready.

He was not.

“I’ve always been into fitness, so when I saw that, I go, ‘Oh, I’ve got to try that,’” VanAutreve said. “And I thought I was in good shape beforehand. I was in good shape, but I wasn’t in the best functional fitness shape. My first run was in 2019, and I didn’t train at all. I just went and tried it and thought I could do it. And I did horrible. It was so humbling.

“They took a year off [because of] COVID, and I really didn’t start taking it serious until about 2021, 2022. I didn’t want that to happen again. I wanted to go out there and succeed and not circle the drain by the end of it.”

He trained hard for two years and it all paid off last week.

The 33-year-old father of two walked away as a member of the coveted Lion’s Den, which is the equivalent to the Heisman Trophy, after competing in the the Firefighter Challenge at the Midwest Regional in Valparaiso, Indiana.

To join the Lion’s Den, he had to complete the course in one minute, 40 seconds. He had almost three seconds to spare, coming in at 1:37.31.

“That’s basically the best of the best. Everybody who takes this seriously shoots for the Lion’s Den. Once you’re in you’re in,” VanAutreve said. “It was huge. It’s been something I’ve been working hard for.”

VanAutreve received a special Lion’s Den letterman’s jacket and coin to commemorate the achievement.

Fire chief Scott Etheridge was not surprised to see what his Lieutenant accomplished.

“It was pretty exciting to see him get to the Lion’s Den. To have somebody from Princeton do that is pretty exciting,” Etheridge said. “Eli’s one of the hardest-working kids I’ve ever been around. He definitely carries out what he sets his mind to.”

When he started taking it seriously, VanAutreve first worked with the ex-world champion for about six to eight months. Then he started training with Huntley’s Eric Rose, who has been with him every step, including in the Midwest Regional.

“We went back and forth with different trainings, different things to do to get better. It’s incredible the amount of work that had to go into this,” VanAutreve said. “When you see guys do this, the fast guys make it look easy, and then when you go out there and realize what it actually is and you’re pushing yourself 100% the whole way. It’s a whole other level of fitness that you didn’t even know that existed.

“It just took time and consistency and a lot of hard work and finally got there. Definitely didn’t happen over night.”

VanAutreve explained what has been tabbed as the “toughest two minutes in sports.”

“You start in full bunker gear. Everything has to be rated for structural firefighting. So it’s the same gear we would wear in a burning building. We have an air pack on and we’re on air during the whole event,” VanAutreve said.

“The whole challenge starts with you having a 45-pound high-rise pack, it’s a hose that you carry on your shoulder for five flights of steps. You get to the top of the tower and then you hoist a 42-pound doughnut roll hose all the way to the top. Everything has to be placed in a bucket at the top of the tower. Then you come down the tower as fast as you can. You have to hit every step coming down. You can skip steps on the way up, but you can’t on the way down.

“Next is the forcible-entry machine. They call it the Keiser Machine, which I believe is a 135-pound steel-eye beam that you have to drive the whole distance of the sled and I believe is five feet. Once you do that, then you hop off that and run around the cones, the delineator course. You get all the way to the end and you pick up a charged hose line. Which by the end of the hose drag weighs over 200 pounds. You go through the saloon doors, open up the nozzle, hit a target with your stream. Then drop the hose, run to the dummy drag, which weighs 175 pounds and you back pedal with the dummy 105 feet to the finish line.

“And you’re doing all that on air. The goal is to be able to do all of that at 100% as fast as you can.”

VanAutreve remembers watching the event on ESPN when he was a kid. He said they are trying to get it back on live TV.

He will compete at Worlds in Nashville the first week of October, along with Nick LaVenway, a Princeton firefighter and paramedic.

“We hold each other countable and kind of feed off each other’s numbers,” VanAutreve said.

VanAutreve said he never thought he’d do something like this when he was playing basketball at Princeton High School (Class of 2010). But he said always kind of looked at firefighting as a sport, because it’s a physical job.

“The better fitness you have, the better you can be at your job,” he said. “I’ve noticed by taking fire firefighters’ challenge as serious as I have, it’s made my actual job easier. Everything we do out on the challenge course is job related.”

VanAutreve said his training helps him keep up with his two kids on his off days when he’s on dad duty.

Newly appointed as Lieutenant with the Princeton Fire Department in January, VanAutreve said he’s “just trying to lead from the front and be an example for my crew and everybody else in the department.”

They’ll know through a lot of hard work, anything is possible.

Kevin Hieronymus has been the BCR Sports Editor since 1986. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com