Gettysburg College Athletics

ALEX CALDER '16
FIELD HOCKEY

“Once I started classes, you are working on time management, you have to be adaptable. Things change, like practices. We’d flip with the football team but it was easy to communicate among faculty and staff and our coaching staff. I remember our head coach, Barb Jordan, instilling in us that ‘you are responsible now for communicating for yourself, advocating for yourself with your professors, but respecting their class time too.’ So that taught me a lot in my current role. I am a current collegiate head coach for field hockey so I put a lot of the same expectations on my players and I want to teach them to also advocate for themselves as student athletes. Class is the number one priority, but field hockey is a big reason you’re here too and we have to make that work."

JOE EMERUSABE '15
MEN'S BASKETBALL

“We had to adapt from each game, versus each team. Being able to adapt to every client or opportunity that we come across is gonna be different from the next one. So being able to say, ‘This is what we did well during this game, let’s try to incorporate that,’ and, if it’s not working well, being able to think on the fly to say, ‘Okay, let’s pivot this way, so that we can close this deal,’ and you always have to be able to think quickly on your feet.”

ABBY FERGUSON '16
SOFTBALL

“A lot of those skills transferred, being adaptable in every situation. Whether it be a game day situation, whether it be dealing with different coaches and people, that definitely translated to being able to work in a fast-paced environment, because coaches want things done yesterday, so that transferred really nicely. I did do a bit of a career switch, and I now work for The Boeing Company in project management. So again, that transferability of skills helped me to be able to make that pivot and be adaptable, obviously learning a whole new language.”

BRENDAN LODER '23
WRESTLING

“Being adaptable is probably one of the best things that I have learned how to do. I had a perfectly normal first semester and then we got done with the wrestling season and, all of a sudden, we’re getting sent home. So it’s like, alright, I can’t do anything about it, that’s above my pay grade - the decisions that were made - so I was like we just have to be able to be adaptable. And I think adaptability is a huge part of what I do now with my career. You can have the most perfect plan in the world, but it’s never going to be perfect. There's always something that has to change, always something that you need to be able to move quick on your feet in order to adjust, in order to complete the mission, or in my case, keep your men alive or complete whatever mission that we have to do or ordered to do.”

DANNY DUFFEY '20
MEN'S BASKETBALL

“Coach is communicating we have practice at this time. There might be a film session here or there. There’s usually a team GroupMe and a lot of that stuff seems simple - that you just say ‘Alright, the coach sent the text, I’ll be there.’ But if you’re a captain or a leader on your team, a lot of time there is that one person that doesn’t get the message or, for whatever reason, they show up late or it creates issues. It’s just that overcommunication that, when you get into the work world, you can’t assume the other person knows what you’re talking about or what needs to get done. And if you do assume those things, they can create issues. Now, in business, or wherever you’re working, there’s real dollars on the line, people’s lives at stake, things like that, where there’s more severe consequences than just ‘you were late to practice so we’re going to run suicides.’ I think it emphasizes the importance of communication. Obviously on the court, on the field, whatever sport you play, at the collegiate level, if your team doesn’t communicate at a high level and isn’t connected internally, then you’re not going to reach your potential. The same goes in the work world. If people aren’t on the same page, or even within a larger organization, if different departments can’t communicate well together, they move slower and they’re not as successful as a business."

EMILY GIBBONS '18
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

“Learning to communicate with all my teammates - everyone responds differently to different situations. That easily transfers to a classroom where I have 30 different kids who need to be communicated with in a different way. Some respond well to motivation, some respond well to, 'Hey, you really need to get this done because it's due tomorrow.' So it just depends on the student. But I think communication was a big one that I really learned. Being able to communicate with Coach and different teammates that I can now take and put into my classroom."

BRENDAN LODER '23
WRESTLING

“I think being on a team with probably 30 guys, everyone’s doing something different. Everyone studies different things. Everyone’s from a different place. Everyone’s involved in different activities. But we all need to come together and wrestle, be a part of a team, we have to put all that stuff aside and actively communicate with each other. We’re not all going to like each other. Some people just aren’t going to get along. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t all communicate with each other. They might disagree with what others have to say but, at the end of the day, if word needs to be communicated, if we need to say, ‘Okay, we’re all going to practice at 1:15. Everyone needs to be there.' That needs to get communicated in an effective way. Communication is probably one of the most important parts of what I do today. Being able to communicate to 200 people in a company, or 40 people in my platoon, what needs to be done, what we need to do the task, what the task is, why we are doing it. That’s probably one of the most important parts too - the why - because if you can’t communicate the why or the purpose of what you’re doing, people who you are in change of leading, they are not going to be fully bought in on why we are doing this.”

KAT SEARS '21
WOMEN'S SWIMMING

“Communication. It’s super key because, similar to working in an office, there’s different job titles and you have to be able to communicate and get your point across in a neutral and a way that others can understand. It’s the same with swimming or any sport - any position in a sport - you need to learn how to collectively work together, so I know a lot of conversations would come up about people getting down on their times or trying to fix their technique in a certain stroke. Injuries would pop up, and through communication, and listening and understanding your teammates, you were able to help one another. In the office, being able to communicate what your specific team needs or how you need to get a certain task done is almost the same exact thing - it’s just not swimming anymore. Especially in marketing, we have to get a lot of accounts live and without thorough communication, a lot of things can fall through the cracks. It was the same with swimming, if you’re not communicating with your teammates and not really understanding how they’re feeling or if they’re hurt or if they need help in a certain area, it’s not going to go as smoothly as if you communicated that and knew kind of how to help each other out, be there, be present for each other." 

EMMA DORSHIMER '19
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

“When you work on a team, as you go throughout your season, you’re encountering different types of problems that you have to solve. Your team is filled with all different people, different walks of life, different problem-solving strategies. I think that working on a team has shown that you have to be creative in how you approach those problems, getting different people’s points of views and working towards that common goal. All throughout your life you’re going to be faced with problems - whether it’s work, personal, or romantic relationships - being able to work those out on a basketball court or within my school experience at Gettysburg has been beneficial to how I approach them now, which is definitely with a lot of patience and curiosity."

ESSIE PASTERNAK '23
WOMEN'S LACROSSE

“On the field as a defender, being able to read what was given to me on the field - if I know that an attacker on the opposing team was trailing behind me, I would try and push the ball and push a fast break on the attacking end, so just being creative even if it’s not comfortable has definitely helped me even in my job today. Now I’m working in research in Boston, and most people don’t think creativity is associated with the STEM and the science, math side of the work world, but I’ve definitely been creative with my coworkers and how to project manage and prioritizing which tasks are most important to finish throughout the day. I definitely have to be creative because entering the workforce has made me realize that there are some things that need to be done before others and that list just keeps getting longer and longer at the end of the day, but having to task manage and prioritize definitely takes some creativity."

ALEX CALDER '16
FIELD HOCKEY

“For me, I’m always curious, I want to learn as much as I can. Having teammates, even though I went to school in a state next to another teammate, she had a whole different experience and there were some things that I had never heard of, but it’s important to grow that way. I remember her parent would bring a South Jersey pizza tradition, tomato pie. I was like, ‘I’ve never had this before.’ We had a teammate who was from the Netherlands who was part of our program for a year and her speaking about what they would do, it just was exciting and I think it gave us a well-rounded approach to being open to push our own boundaries. At the end of the day, the excitement of just getting to know people from different experiences helped me kind of broaden my view on everything and break out of my little mold of suburban Baltimore, which is - now in hindsight - super important and a big part of what I value in my life is travel, meeting new people, and kind of embracing their values and their experiences too. I think that makes us all stronger.”

EMMA DORSHIMER '19
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

“Intercultural fluency is definitely something that’s helped me in my current job and that I cultivated at Gettysburg. Not only on the women’s basketball team did we have a lot of different interests, diverse backgrounds, but across different teams as well, which we often were friends with and hanging out with and spent a lot of team cheering on and supporting in that way. Being able to converse with all of them towards a common goal of wanting to see the Gettysburg Bullets be successful. Within the team we had people from all different walks of life, different states, people with different goals in mind, people looking to get different things out of their student-athlete experience. In my current career, that’s proved to be a really important skill, to be able to converse with those people and to understand that we’re all coming from different areas. I work in business development and the job that I have now I work with people based in 140 different countries across the world, so being able to converse with them and have a level of patience and kindness and leading with a curiosity and understanding is definitely something I cultivated at Gettysburg that has served me well."

LOGAN EDMOND '23
FOOTBALL

“A lot of our coaches, especially Coach Banks, like to preach that you can’t lead someone if you don't know who they are. Being able to learn who somebody is requires communication skills and that fluency to really get a grasp of who they are, what makes them tick, and how you can be able to lead them in certain situations. You can’t lead everybody with the same cookie-cutter mentality, that people aren’t always going to be exactly the same. One way might work for somebody but not the next person, so being able to learn that has definitely helped me with my career. I am still in training right now but I will be a territory manager for Cross America Partners so I am going to have a role where I will be leading people and even in my training so far I have been interacting with different people from different areas on a daily basis. I've been in Scranton, Allentown, West Virginia, Virginia, so I have been with different people from different walks of life throughout my entire training. Being able to have those skills of learning people individually and being able to interact with them and figure out what makes them tick has really helped me in my career be successful and has helped me build connections with people I have never really met before and that all results from football, being surrounded by guys that are from different walks of life."

ML REEVES '19
MEN'S BASKETBALL

“During my time playing for Gettysburg basketball, I had teammates from places like Brazil, Australia, Italy. Learning about how they communicate one way or how a certain gesture can mean one thing and for them versus what it means for me was really eye opening. It was something that, especially in the global world where I currently work. I have team members that live on different continents. Being understanding that there are differences and that there are things that I need to be cognizant of was incredibly impactful for me professionally. And that's something I did learn playing basketball."

DANNY DUFFEY '20
MEN'S BASKETBALL

“When it comes to leadership, there’s obviously different forms. Some people are more vocal leaders and some lead by example. I’m early in my career. I don't have a leadership role in my company right now but I still got a great education in leadership and know what that looks like. It’s constantly doing the little things every day. For instance, if you’re the captain or the starting point guard or the quarterback, you need to show up prepared and ready to go with the right attitude and it doesn’t really matter what’s going on outside of your sports world or whatever the case, you need to be ready to go when it’s time to go. You have to always be on, and I find that to be the same way - if you wanna be highly successful professionally, whatever field you go into, you can’t decide that ‘I’m not gonna prepare for this sales call because I had a bad day.’ In college, if you decide that you’re gonna have a bad practice that day or you mentally check out, you might lose your starting spot, which in the grand scheme of things is trivial, but you translate that into the working world - if you show up to a meeting unprepared or something like that, it goes back to those real dollars on the line and it could affect your own career."

LOGAN EDMOND '23
FOOTBALL

“A lot of our coaches, especially Coach Banks, likes to preach that you can’t lead someone if you don't know who they are. Being able to learn who somebody is requires communication skills and that fluency to really get a grasp of who they are, what makes them tick, and how you can be able to lead them in certain situations. You can’t lead everybody with the same cookie cutter mentality, that people aren’t always going to be exactly the same. One way might work for somebody but not the next person, so being able to learn that has definitely helped me with my career. I am still in training right now but I will be a territory manager for Cross America Partners so I am going to have a role where I will be leading people and even in my training so far I have been interacting with different people from different areas on a daily basis. I've been in Scranton, Allentown, West Virginia, Virginia, so I have been with different people from different walks of life throughout my entire training. Being able to have those skills of learning people individually and being able to interact with them and figure out what makes them tick has really helped me in my career be successful and has helped me build connections with people I have never really met before and that all results from football, being surrounded by guys that are from different walks of life."

CAROLINE KURTT '23
WOMEN'S GOLF

“Being a part of the women's golf team and being the team captain definitely helped not only my leadership and communication skills but my overall confidence as well going out into the professional world. One of the standout things that happened in my senior year that really pushed this development was being invited to go to the Snell-Schillingford Leadership Symposium. It was for women in college sports that were looking to have careers in sports or wanting to be a coach or whatever else. I heard a lot of speakers that I really resonated with, that I still keep in touch with to this day, some really fantastic coaches that we've had in the Centennial Conference and just learning about how important female leadership has been in the Centennial Conference. And ever since then, I think my experience with the women's golf team has helped curate the leadership qualities that I have now. I think just having that confidence to really show my skills and lead us to another Centennial Conference championship. I think pushing that into my professional life, now I work for the United States Golf Association, which obviously comes from my passion of golf, but my role there, I have to constantly be in discussions with senior leadership and talking to them about their goals and what they want to accomplish. Being on any sports team, you learn your role in that team. So whether you're a first year and you're learning to be a team player and just help support how you can, or if you're a senior and you're trying to take your team to the next level, I think it's just really helped me in my professional life to understand my role on a team and the success that I had at Gettysburg definitely built me up to have a successful career post grad.”

KAT SEARS '21
WOMEN'S SWIMMING

“Leadership was a big one, honestly. There has been a couple of times where, in work, that you have to kind of stand up and be a leader because you’re more proficient at certain tasks than your coworkers may be, or vice versa, and that helps a lot in stating someone needs to be a leader in certain meetings and someone needs to lead a certain topic. Whereas other people would lead other topics. Through leadership in swimming, it has the same thing to do with, like, ‘oh you’re in a relay,’ you have to take responsibility for going one of the fastest times or staying within a certain time frame in that race, and it’s the same in actual work because you need to pull your weight and you need to take leadership over your jobs and your tasks and what you can get done in any given work day or week."

EMMA DORSHIMER '19
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

“When you work on a team, as you go throughout your season, you’re encountering different types of problems that you have to solve. Your team is filled with all different people, different walks of life, different problem-solving strategies. I think that working on a team has shown that you have to be creative in how you approach those problems, getting different people’s points of views and working towards that common goal. All throughout your life you’re going to be faced with problems - whether it’s work, personal, or romantic relationships - being able to work those out on a basketball court or within my school experience at Gettysburg has been beneficial to how I approach them now, which is definitely with a lot of patience and curiosity."

CAROLINE KURTT '23
WOMEN'S GOLF

“Problem solving at Gettysburg and on the women's golf team was definitely something that my whole team had to work through. My senior year, we've had more rain than we've ever had, especially in the spring. That was obviously a challenge to work through - getting higher scores, not feeling like you're really pushing yourself to be your best. Even through the rain and the things we weren't expecting throughout the season, problem-solving was a huge skill that I learned because going into the final hole of the Centennial Conference Championship, I knew it was down to me and another school, and I had no idea where we were placed and where we were in the rankings. My team already knew that we were going to win, even though I was getting to the last hole. But, in my mind, I had a great drive, and I missed my approach shot, and two putt on the final hole, and I thought I had ruined it for the whole team, but knowing that my team had a great performance, and they were there to support me, even though I was feeling like I had just lost it all. It's just knowing when to pivot and knowing when problems arise and moving through those or celebrating those wins that come from the problem solving."

MATTHEW PEIPHER '23
BASEBALL

“This comes up a lot when things aren’t going right. You have a bad stretch of games or a bad stretch of at bats, you sort of start to reflect and think inward. A lot of that ability to come back from that failure and to move forward relates to problem solving. That’s not something you necessarily have to accomplish on your own. In fact, you should be working with other people and brainstorming and collaborating on how to solve problems. Working at the Pennsylvania House of Representatives this summer, we had a lot of issues come up through constituent letters or problems that the legislators themselves recognized in Pennsylvania law. We had to come up - as a research department - brainstorming ways to solve those, or specific methods of how to accomplish the goals of the constituents who sent letters to the capitol. So from that perspective, I think being able to analyze a problem as a whole and then in individual parts really was a skill that I developed at Gettysburg.” 

MELVIN PEREZ '23
FOOTBALL

"One of the beautiful things about Gettysburg is that, because it’s a liberal arts college, you tend to dabble in so many different disciplines and take a plethora of different classes, different topics, and so, I’ve really learned to find parallels between things that seemingly didn’t overlap. On the football field, I was always trying to visualize things that would happen even before they would happen, and I think that really helped me create like this mindset of ‘Even though there’s not a problem, there might be a problem, so how can we avoid this problem?’ So, I’m doing risk and financial advisory, and one of the things that we focus on is problems before they happen, and how can we mitigate risk in any form. On the football field, obviously you have these game plans and you start to wonder what things can happen, whether it be a third down, can it be a run, can it be a pass, so you really start to visualize these things, and you try to mitigate these kinds of risks before they happen – whether it be on the football field or now at Deloitte once I start working.”

AUSTIN DAVIS '14
BASEBALL

“There’s very few workplaces where you’re the only one, and from my first job till now, everyone - all the companies that I worked with - call employees teammates. It makes perfect sense because you all are working towards the same goal. It’s a very different goal than when you’re on a sports team and when you’re trying to win a game or a match, but you’re trying to achieve the same goal. When you have that team mentality and work together, and have that understanding that you need to work together to achieve something, it helps to eliminate egos. It helps to eliminate friction, and it helps become the driving force behind success."

SUKKY ND-EZUMA '23
MEN'S BASKETBALL

“One standout example of applying my skills I formed as a student-athlete to my current career in computer science involves leading major software development project for Qualtrics. Just as I used to lead plays on the basketball court, I am now part of a team of programmers in creating complex solutions. Just the adaptability and problem solving skills I developed through intense game situations directly translates to my role, just like adjusting my strategy on the court based on the opponent's moves, I now navigate unexpected coding challenges, tweaking our approach to ensure successful project execution. Another thing I will point out is teamwork and collaboration, which is the cornerstone of all basketball success and it is also paramount in the tech industry, and just as I relied on the teammates strengths during the game, I leverage the expertise of my colleagues to tackle coding problems. Effective communication too helps you understanding teammates from diverse backgrounds and helps me convey technical concepts to nontechnical stakeholders.”