Stu­dent Ath­lete of the Week: Emma Mott

MISHAWAKA--Se­nior Emma Mott has ce­mented her­self as one of the most sto­ried ath­letes in Bethel Uni­ver­sity ath­let­ics his­tory. In her three years at Bethel, Mott has bro­ken the wom­en’s 5k race time on six sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions. She is the first and only cross-coun­try ath­lete in Bethel’s his­tory to achieve NAIA All-Amer­i­can sta­tus. 

She cur­rently holds nine of the top-11 fastest 5k times in pro­gram his­tory. Two of the most re­cent times Mott broke the pro­gram record came from back-to-back races on Sept. 11 and 19 re­spec­tively. Both of those race fin­ishes are the only two times a Bethel wom­en’s cross-coun­try run­ner has run a sub-18 5k. 

“One of my goals was def­i­nitely the un­der-18 min­utes for the 5k, so that felt pretty good to ac­com­plish that,” Mott said. 

But one of the great­est ath­letes in Bethel wom­en’s cross-coun­try his­tory al­most did not come to Bethel.  

She started out her col­lege ca­reer at the Uni­ver­sity of Day­ton. While Day­ton had a great cross-coun­try pro­gram, Mott said the school did not fit her. She trans­ferred to Bethel the fol­low­ing year. 

“I think the tran­si­tion was eas­ier than I ex­pected,” Mott said. “I did­n’t nec­es­sar­ily want to start all the way over again af­ter hav­ing gone to a new school the pre­vi­ous year.” 

She cred­ited her Bethel cross-coun­try team­mates and Coach Ryan Som­mers for mak­ing the tran­si­tion to Bethel easy. From the Chris­t­ian at­mos­phere of cam­pus to the friend­li­ness of her team­mates, Mott said she felt wel­comed.  

Some of her fa­vorite mo­ments with the team are on the rides to and from the meets. While her team re­mains se­ri­ous about prepar­ing for com­pe­ti­tion, the mo­ments of play­ing games in the ho­tel rooms and hang­ing out with her team­mates help build team chem­istry. 

“Even though we’re not all run­ning to­gether at the same time, we’ll pray for each other dur­ing the race,” Mott said. “So, some­thing like, ‘God, please help this per­son feel strong and just stay con­fi­dent to be able to push through.’” 

On an in­di­vid­ual level, Mott said she tries to block out any thoughts of doubt from her mind dur­ing a race. If she starts to think about pain or dis­com­fort she ex­pe­ri­ences dur­ing a race, she loses con­fi­dence. 

The tough­est course Mott has raced on dur­ing her time at Bethel is Bob­cat Cross Coun­try Course in Point Look­out, MO. The course’s ter­rain is hilly, and Mott re­calls two spe­cific hills that each seemed to stretch on for a quar­ter of a mile. 

De­spite the course’s dif­fi­culty, Mott won back-to-back in­di­vid­ual NC­CAA na­tional cham­pi­onships there. She is cur­rently the only Bethel wom­en’s cross-coun­try run­ner in pro­gram his­tory to be crowned as an in­di­vid­ual na­tional cham­pion. 

Even though she has ac­com­plished so much al­ready, Mott said there are small ar­eas where she can im­prove. She is cur­rently work­ing on gain­ing the con­fi­dence to start out her races at a faster pace. 

“I like to kind of take it a lit­tle slow and steady at the be­gin­ning and then pick it up later,” Mott said. “I know I need to start out a lit­tle faster to keep im­prov­ing my times, so I think the men­tal side of that is get­ting more com­fort­able and con­fi­dent with start­ing out faster and be­liev­ing I’ll have enough at the end to fin­ish strong too.” 

Out­side of cross coun­try, Mott al­ready earned her bach­e­lor’s de­gree and is cur­rently work­ing to­wards her mas­ter’s in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion (MBA). She re­cently mar­ried Bai­ley Mott, a soon-to-be se­nior at Bethel.  

She is not sure what her fu­ture af­ter col­lege looks like, but she knows she will miss run­ning with the cross-coun­try team. 

“I’m re­ally thank­ful we got the sea­son this year,” Mott said. “A lot of peo­ple don’t. So, I’m very thank­ful that I get to fin­ish out my se­nior sea­son and I’ll def­i­nitely miss…be­ing around the girls, be­ing on a team and com­pet­ing.”