ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Trevor Heitkamp is constantly striving to improve as a student, as an athlete and as a person.
Heitkamp, a sophomore on the cross country and track and field teams at Roberts Wesleyan University, has shown growth in each of those areas since arriving on campus in the fall of 2024.
Heitkamp challenges himself academically, carrying a 4.0 grade point average as a Biochemistry major.
He excels as a distance runner, trimming more than a minute off his high school time in the 5,000-meter run while setting the Roberts Wesleyan freshman record of 14:51.64 as a member of the outdoor track and field team last spring.
He is a servant leader who enjoys participating in the Adopt-A-School Program with third- and fourth-grade classes at Nathaniel Rochester Community School. Heitkamp also serves as secretary of the Roberts' Math and Science Club.
Heitkamp helped the Redhawks' men's cross-country team to its 11th consecutive East Coast Conference Championship by finishing second overall on Oct. 25 at Sunken Meadows Park in Kings Park, N.Y.
The performance earned Heitkamp First-Team All-ECC honors for the second consecutive season. The Fort Recovery, Ohio, native was also selected the Roberts Wesleyan University Male Scholar-Athlete of the Month for October.
Heitkamp, who ran track and cross country while also participating in marching band at Fort Recovery High School, took a few moments to share his thoughts on being a student-athlete at Roberts. Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
How did you get started in cross country?
"I started running cross country back in seventh grade. I had grown up in a family where sports was a big deal and it was highly encouraged of me to play a sport. My dad played college baseball and my mom grew up on a farm. She really encouraged us to play sports because she never had that opportunity as a kid. I was born with a type of cataract that left me legally blind in my left eye, so I don't have any depth perception. That makes playing sports like basketball, football and baseball really hard. I was never super good at those sports, but I had run a couple of local 5Ks back in fifth and sixth grade, and I did pretty good at those so I decided to run cross country and I immediately fell in love with it. I decided to continue it throughout high school and now college, too."
What aspects of the sport do you love?
"I really liked the concept of pushing yourself to your absolute limits. … If you have 100 meters left or 1,000 meters left in the race, you can still give it 100% all the way to the line, and I just really like that aspect of the sport. I would say another thing I really like about the sport is just having the ability to improve. It's not a sport that improvement comes easy in, it comes through a lot of hard work and dedication and that's something I really appreciate because you can look back after a long season and see how many miles you put in and really be proud of that."
How did you go from western Ohio to Roberts?
"I found out about Roberts by a little bit of a miracle. I was on Instagram one day, and I saw this recruiting website as an ad. I wanted to run in college, so I just put in my information real quick. Later, I was like this could just be any random website, so I went back and I deleted my information. Then, a couple weeks later I got an email from Roberts coach (Andrew) Dorr and I was like, 'How did this guy get my email?' I realized it was from this recruiting website, and coach's email was phenomenal. He said everything I wanted in a college, 'Basically, like, no partying, no drugs, no alcohol,' and he described a little bit about the team, and I was like, 'Wow, this program is really good.' So, I went on a couple of phone calls with him, and everything seemed really good. I was impressed by the level of care he had for me, even as a recruit. Then, I ended up going on campus, and I just fell in love with it. I really love the small community of Roberts, and how intertwined everything is."
Do you have a favorite class or favorite professor at Roberts?
"Yes, I would say, one of my favorite professors is Professor Rachel Graham. She was my professor for General Biology and she's also my professor in Microbiology lab. I really like her. I'm actually going to do research with her next semester, so that should be a lot of fun. I just really like the way she teaches, it makes a lot of sense to me. She's very straightforward, and she's very easy to talk to as well. I would say Microbiology is probably my favorite class right now, too. I don't know why, I'm just really interested in all the small microorganisms that live in our world."
Do you have an idea of what you want to do career-wise?
"I want to go to medical school and then ultimately become a pediatrician. I always have really liked working with kids and I've always been interested in medicine as well, and combining those two things you get a pediatrician. I actually did a lot of job shadowing this summer, and I definitely could see myself doing that."
What does being a Redhawk mean to you?
"I would say being a Redhawk is being an active team member and an active student. What I mean by that is you're not just passively a part of your team, you're not just showing up to practice and doing your own thing. You're an active team member, you're actively supporting your teammates, you're actively participating, you're putting in your full effort and you're really, really working with your team and helping people on your team. Then, being an active student as well, I would say is you're trying your best in your classes, you're asking questions, you're challenging yourself in your coursework, and I feel like the combination of those things is what a Redhawk is meant to be. You're thriving to be the best person you can be because God created you for that."
