LEXINGTON, Va. Dec. 12, 2023 — Anna Grace Adams ’26 has been swimming for 16 years. It’s like second nature to her. She was taught to swim by her mother, who basically threw her in and had her figure it out.  

She says she comes from a swimming family; her mother and uncle are swimmers and even started the club team that she was part of. Her mother also coached her and her sisters growing up.

Coming to Virginia Military Institute, she sought out the swim coach Scott Thacker the spring before she matriculated. She didn’t want to give up the sport and thought it would help with her transition to VMI. 

“Swimming is really interesting when you break it down as a sport because it is a team sport, but you compete individually,” she said. “You get kind of the best of both worlds, especially with my family and my mom and my sisters being so intertwined in my swimming career before coming into VMI. I like competing. I like the competition. But I also like practicing and training along with my teammates.” 

The history major from Mississippi was selected for a four-year U.S. Army scholarship and wanted to put that into effect at a military college.  

“I definitely didn't want the typical college experience," she said. “VMI had everything I needed: Great academics, small environment, small class environment, has a swim team … kind of checked all the boxes.” 

After she graduates, she will commission into the U.S. Army, where she hopes to be an intel officer. 

She’s a long-distance swimmer, which takes endurance and patience. Her events are the 500-meter, the 1,000-meter, and the mile.  

“I just pick a song and I replay it in my head, like over and over and over, because staring at the bottom of the pool for 18 minutes is kind of boring,” she said. “So, normally I picked a Taylor Swift song.” 

Not only are her competition events long, so is her season.  

‘Tis the season 

Swim season starts the first day of school — this year Aug. 26 — and goes until mid-to-late February.  

Cadet-athletes at VMI not only have their responsibilities with their selected sport but cadet duties on top of that.  Cadets are also required to take physical fitness classes twice a week, participate in ROTC all four years, prepare for room and uniform inspections, practice for parade, guard duty, and more. 

She has two different kinds of typical days. One of them, she’ll have morning practice from 6 to 7:15 a.m. Then it’s straight to breakfast roll call (BRC) and onto classes from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Adams will be back at practice by 4:15 until 7:30 p.m. — either swimming or lifting. Then she eats dinner with her team. After that, she’ll be doing classwork until 10 or 10:30 p.m.  

The other typical day is when she has to perform her cadre duties. She’s a corporal for her company, so she’s directly involved in training the rats. She’ll have morning practice that day, then classes like normal, but after having afternoon practice, she’ll have to do rat training, where she’s with the rats for about a two-and-a-half-hour block of time. She’s instructing them and teaching them whatever her sergeants have told her to do that day.  

"It's definitely hard to balance as an athlete, especially as a female athlete and being in season for so long,” she said.  

She credits her mother, who raised four girls on her own, for her independence and driven nature. She saw a good example of leadership in her. Adams said she thrives when she’s under pressure and has a lot of tasks at hand.  

“When I have a bunch of free time, that’s when things go sideways. Or I just feel like, what can I do, I need to use all my time,” she said. “I think VMI is a great college to do that at because there's always something going on, something you have to be at, something you need to be doing. Hopefully that translates into good work habits.” 

Adams does run into conflict with all her different activities, so it requires good time managements skills. She says it just takes some time to figure out how to balance it all.

"I'm in Delta Company, so they're known for being very professional in taking the Rat Line, but also building all of us together as good cadets,” she said. "The upperclassmen that trained me, along with my own driven habits, taught me how to time manage and that academics come first.” 

One struggle she found this year as a 3rd Class cadet was missing her dyke. 

“I'm kind of here on my own,” she said.

She believes it’s important to have friendships that can push you along in your cadetship. She credits her team and friends for providing a supportive environment.  

“My teammates are my everything,” she said. “There have been some tough days, but we help each other out when one of us is struggling. If one of us is doing great, we want to celebrate them and be there for them." 

Laura Peters Shapiro
Communications & Marketing
VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE