A typical Monday morning for Kate Bogan ’27 starts before sunrise. No, she’s not rushing to complete an assignment before an early deadline, she’s not trying to catch a flight and she doesn’t have a strange aversion to sunlight. Bogan isn’t your typical early riser — for her, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays start at 5:30 a.m. when she makes her way to the Lowry Center for her morning swim practice. For many students, the overwhelming November deadlines are a dash to the finish line that is Thanksgiving break. For Kenyon’s student-athlete population, this race is both physical and academic, and it lasts all season long. 

On double-practice days, Bogan will have completed a high-intensity morning practice, trained in the weight room, showered and eaten breakfast, all before her 9 a.m. class. When she finishes the rest of her classes at 3:30 p.m., she will head back down to the Lowry Center for her second practice of the day. “At 3:45 p.m., the tone starts to shift, because our practice starts at 4:15 p.m.,” she said in an interview with the Collegian. Afternoon practices run from 4:15 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. but can often go longer. “It’s not just the two hours and 15 minute block,” Bogan clarified, “especially if you stay a little later and do some extra work, or go to the trainer. It’s really a lot of time.” After practice, she will usually work her shift as a tutor at the Math and Science Skills Center, complete extra homework and prepare for the next day, when she will have to do it all over again.  

 “In practices, our goals are to challenge our students to get better at something relevant,” Head Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Coach Jess Book ’01 said in an email to the Collegian. “It might be cardiovascular fitness, it might be technical execution, it might be power application — or it might be team-building.” Swimming and diving, like all Kenyon sports teams, is known for having a rigorous schedule. “We do the things we do in the ways we do them because they challenge us and give us purpose,” Book said. 

Jason Glorius, the team’s diving coach, focuses on positive self-talk in addition to rigorous physical exercise. “Every time the divers walk through a doorway, they tell themselves something positive about themselves,” Glorius said in an email to the Collegian. “Those things obviously involve no athletic talent, but I believe they will have as much impact on our performance as any type of physical training we do.” In addition, the dive team’s weekly schedule consists of three hours of lifts, three to four hours of morning dryland practice and 11 hours in the pool. Lucy Cassell-Kelley ’27, a diver, has no trouble staying busy. “Three days a week, I have a morning lift and then evening practice,” she said in a message to the Collegian. “The other two days, I have a dryland workout in the morning and practice in the afternoon. In between, I have classes, labs, TAing, volunteering, meetings and homework.” 

Being a student-athlete requires time management, dedication and commitment. This past Sunday, my friend Sofia Montaño ’28 and I challenged our non-athlete selves to adhere to Bogan’s strict schedule (albeit a heavily “watered-down” version). Since the Steen Aquatic Center was closed until 1 p.m., we woke up at 5:30 a.m. to run as a substitute for a morning swim practice (whether that was an adequate substitute for getting in a cold pool on a November morning is up to the reader to decide). Later, we went to the weight room for an hour before making our way to the pool, where we were (literally) lapped by swimmers who still showed up to practice on their day off. 

On a typical double-practice day, Bogan spends over three hours in the pool. Montaño and I lasted less than 45 minutes, and I was forced to confront exactly why I could never pass a lifeguarding test. “While I recognize we weren’t able to follow the schedule to a T,” Montaño told me, “I do believe that seeking to follow the schedule has made me more cognizant of the levels of discipline required to surrender your day to rigorous training, as well as the value of having a community to make things fun.” 

As amateur athletes for a day, we learned that Kenyon’s sports team schedules require an intense amount of time management to balance athletics with academics. With designated times for being at the Lowry Center or in the pool, Montaño and I were forced to combat the “Sunday Scaries” by allocating certain times of the day specifically for schoolwork. Lisa Torrecillas-Jouault ’26, Kenyon’s most recent swimmer to be awarded the NCAC Athlete of the Week title, admitted, “Whenever the season’s over, I find that I manage my time more poorly because I have more free time.” 

However, the rigorous schedule also offers opportunities for community and team-building. In a message to the Collegian, Roman Savage ’27, also a swimmer, said, “Time spent together is time spent learning more about each other and building stronger relationships.” Although the season is long and sometimes exhausting, Cassell-Kelley said that divers learn to support one another. “In this way,” she said,  “we use each other to make ourselves better people, teammates and athletes.” 

Overall, the experience was positive, albeit exhausting. Across all athletes interviewed, one theme reigned supreme: the importance of sleep. Bogan said that she allows herself one nap a week, and, even with my heavily adapted schedule, that felt modest. In the meantime, I’ll stay in my own lane, literally and figuratively, and leave the swimming (and early mornings) to Bogan.