Between early morning workouts, mid-day practices and late night studying, Division I athletes in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, commonly known by the acronym ROTC, are tasked with managing the responsibilities of school, sports and social life with the rigors of training.
ROTC responsibilities entail early morning workouts, called PT, throughout the week and military science lab on Thursdays as part of an intensive, rigorous schedule to prepare students for the military.
Junior freestyle swimmer Samantha Becker manages ROTC and her commitment of the swim team.
“It’s busy, it’s really busy,” Becker said. “But I like it. I love it. If I didn’t love them both, I don’t think I’d be able to continue doing both.”
In addition to ROTC and swim, Becker handles the academic responsibilities of a biochemistry major.
“I have a lot of labs on top of a pretty full class load, it’s just like every bit of the day is prioritized,” Becker said. “Basically five mornings a week I’m up by five.”
In season, Becker has swim practices nearly every day, with team lifts on Tuesdays and Thursdays and swim meets on Saturdays, which leaves Sunday as her designated day to address school work.
“Sometimes the weeks suck when you are slammed with school work, it’s meet week and you have to get up at 3:30 am on a random Wednesday for an ROTC workout, but the Army has a saying ‘embrace the suck,’” Becker added in an email. “At the end of an extremely hard week, you feel so accomplished and ready to do it all again the next week.”
Freshman track and field thrower Marin Rosser has a similar experience to Becker. She balances her responsibilities as a javelin thrower with her coursework for her environmental science major and her ROTC schedule.
“Sometimes I’ll look back and be like, wow I did all of that!” Rosser said. “It’s especially rewarding after you do well on a fitness test for ROTC and then you go and you have a track meet, and I do well on my track meet, and then looking back, it’s kind of all worth it.”
Although handling the stress of school, sports and ROTC has been challenging to adjust to as a freshman, Rosser appreciates the preparation her schedule provides her with.
“Our goal at the end of the day is to commission as second lieutenant in the army, and I get really excited for that,” Rosser said. “Knowing that in the future, you can handle whatever gets thrown at you because you’ve been juggling everything since college.”
Junior lacrosse attacker Emma Elmen also referenced the same value in learning how to balance her different responsibilities.
“In the spring, when lacrosse is in season, we have practice every day except for Sundays and games on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and then I have lab and class for ROTC at Lehigh all day on Thursdays,” Elmen said. “Lacrosse, school, ROTC, everything has come together to prepare for the real world.”
Elmen hopes that involvement in ROTC and her major in government and law will give her opportunities with the United States government.
“After college, I’ll be serving in the army active duty for a minimum of four years but I’m not sure how long I want to stay in after that four years,” Elmen said. “Hopefully after the military, I want to be in the FBI or CIA or something related to the government.”
Occasionally, schedule conflicts occur between sports and ROTC, with Rosser moving night track practices to the day in order to attend her military science lab, and Becker and Elmen also having the occasional issue.
“Both sides have to work with you to be able to do it because there is conflict in the schedule,” Becker said.
“They all come together to help me do both,” Elmen said of the community behind lacrosse and ROTC. “Without that, I think it would have been almost impossible.”
