When she traded her lacrosse stick for a 24-pound rucksack, senior Jill Norbert-Bushinsky left Division I athletics behind.
Her career as an athlete wasn’t over, though; it was just changing directions.
Norbert-Bushinsky began her collegiate career as a midfielder on Temple University’s women’s lacrosse team after graduating from Parkland High School in Allentown. But after her 2021 season, she transferred to Lehigh and decided to step away from lacrosse.
Once she arrived at Lehigh, she discovered the university’s ROTC program, which is known as the Steel Battalion and trains students to become commissioned officers in the United States Army upon graduation.
Today, Norbert-Bushinsky is a cadet and competes for the Steel Battalion’s running team. She also serves as a graduate assistant for the men’s and women’s rowing teams at Lehigh.
She said the ROTC program helped ease her transition between schools, as it provided a sense of structure after giving up lacrosse. She also said she was initially intrigued by the program because it seemed both interesting and challenging.
The Steel Battalion includes cadets from several academic institutions across Pennsylvania. While all cadets participate in leadership labs at the Battalion Headquarters on Mountaintop Campus, many complete physical training and military science courses at their own schools or with nearby cadets.
“I’ve done a lot of sports in my past career, through Lehigh, Temple and in high school, so I’ve just been really training,” Norbert-Bushinsky said. “This is something I’ve really fallen in love with, and I just try to put it all out there.”
On March 9, Norbert-Bushinsky placed first in the women’s cadet division at the Fallen Comrades Half Marathon, which was held at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. She said her goal going into the race was to run just below a seven-minute mile pace.
She met that goal by finishing in 1:31.04 with a 6:57 minute per mile pace, which earned her 36th place overall. In a close finish, Norbert-Bushinsky secured her division win by a 1.39-second margin.
She said she was able to push herself during the race by keeping the top male competitors within her field of vision and making sure no women passed her.
Later that month, she once again put it all out on the course at the Steel Battalion’s Norwegian Foot March on March 22 — a 18.6 mile race completed while carrying a 24-pound rucksack.
Norbert-Bushinsky was the Steel Battalion’s top performer, crossing the finish line at 2:57:25. She finished ahead of the second-place by an 18-minute margin.
Preston Jackson, professor of military science, said Norbert-Bushinsky is one of the top cadets in the program and has the ability to compete with any cadet in the Northeast.
“She is very intelligent, articulate, physically fit and consistently leads by example daily, even with all her academic rigors and all the things that she has to do on the side,” Jackson said.
He said her strong work ethic, combined with her tenacity and intelligence, led fellow cadets to unanimously select her as the battalion’s operations officer.
In her role, Jackson said, Norbert-Bushinsky is responsible for planning and organizing training sessions, particularly the battalion’s leadership lab. This training, he said, is designed to prepare cadets mentally, emotionally and physically for summer training, while also helping to integrate underclassmen into the program.
“She is still a cadet who is relied upon to carry a heavy load, and she does it with absolute perfection,” Jackson said. “She is the right fit, the right person with the right attitude, who has the right skill set to set the example inside the battalion.”
Senior Sacha Joseph is also a cadet in the program and works closely with Norbert-Bushinsky. She said she’s consistently impressed by Norbert-Bushinsky’s ability to balance numerous responsibilities while remaining devoted to everything she takes on.
Joseph said although Norbert-Bushinsky isn’t able to attend morning physical training with the battalion due to her obligations this semester, she doesn’t see it as time off — instead, Norbert-Bushinsky uses the opportunity to train even harder on her own.
“A lot of people can do some things … but they don’t put their all into it,” Joseph said. “She’s putting her all into it for those students. She spends all of her time trying to do the best at anything she sets out to do.”
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