ELON, N.C. – Being part of a college sports team allows you to make lifelong memories and friendships. Junior goalkeeper Anna Hamner and senior defender Kerri Coffman of the Elon University women's soccer team decided they wanted to make more lifetime memories during their time at Elon by engaging on a journey off the pitch at the conclusion of their 2023 season.

The two spent this past J-term embarking on a trip far away from Elon. The adventurous endeavor had nothing to do with their sport, as they traveled to Tanzania and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa and one of the Seven Summits of the world. 

Both Hamner and Coffman knew they wanted to study abroad during J-term, as it is the only time of the year they could do so due to their soccer obligations. While many students would opt to go somewhere they could relax, they both wanted to go somewhere unique.

"I didn't really want to go somewhere where I would probably have the opportunity to go again, so I didn't want to go to Europe or somewhere close to the United States," Coffman said. "I wanted to go somewhere different."

"I would have been able to study abroad next year too since I'm a junior, but I wasn't sure if Tanzania was going to pop back up," Hamner added. "I just thought it was so cool. I also love the outdoors, so I really wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro."

While they both looked at going on the trip prior to speaking to each other about it, it wasn't until Coffman reached out to Hamner about possibly going to Tanzania that they decided to go on the trip together.

"Kerri texted me and was like, 'Do you want to go to Tanzania in J-term?'" Hamner said. "I had already been looking at it, so I'm like, 'Perfect, let's do it.'"

While they both wanted to go on the trip, they each had very different reasons for doing so. 

"I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it," Hamner said. "I had been backpacking in the past and I had a good time, so I wanted to try just the next step up, see if I could accomplish something that I can remember for the rest of my life."

For Coffman, she did not have the backpacking background or the love of the outdoors that Hamner had, but it was the allure of Mount Kilimanjaro that drew her towards Tanzania. 

"It's one of the Seven Summits, so that's pretty special in and of itself," Coffman said. "It's a cool accomplishment to say, 'Oh, by the way, I hiked Mount Kilimanjaro.'"

With a trip like this, all of the students registered for the program had to complete a class in the fall to help prepare them for their journey. However, with the soccer team in season, Hamner and Coffman had to do a lot of the preparation on their own.

"When I went back home – I live in Asheville – I would put rocks in my backpack and go on hikes," Hamner said. "The gear was probably the hardest part to actually prepare for. The packing and the gear was definitely even more challenging to me than the physical part of it. You can't bring that much."

While Coffman said they were told the average person could complete the hike, she believes that it's much more difficult than she was told. Even though she and Hamner were practicing and doing soccer conditioning throughout their season, Coffman believes the difference in the kind of conditioning that was needed made the climb difficult.

"I'm used to short sprints, and this was walking for up to seven miles at a time," Coffman said. 

On their trip, Hamner and Coffman were able to go with a cohort of fellow Elon students, many of whom they had never met before.

After spending three weeks together in Tanzania, Hamner said they both made lifelong friends.

"It was a lot of fun for me," Hamner said. "I think the people really made the hike. I made a ton of new friends and we have something that we'll get to remember forever. It's something that bonds us, a kind of trauma bonding almost."

Part of that "trauma bonding" wasn't just climbing up the mountain. For some of the students on the trip, including Coffman, they had to overcome an extra obstacle.

"I actually got altitude sickness on the fourth night," Coffman said. "I had no appetite, I couldn't eat anything, I would get headaches. That made it a little bit more of a struggle for me and a lot of people on our trip did get altitude sickness." 

"I definitely was tested in ways that I didn't think I would be, but like Anna said, we made so many good relationships and the people who were on the trip with us really helped you through those challenges," Coffman added. 

When talking about Kilimanjaro, both Hamner and Coffman's eyes lit up when discussing what made the mountain so special, but also said it's hard to convey to others that were not on the trip with them.

"It's really hard to describe the mountain to people who weren't there," Coffman said. "Because you can say, 'Oh it was really hard, oh we were having trouble breathing and oh we had altitude sickness,' but it's hard for somebody to understand how that actually was with all of our fatigue, not eating as much as we should, not drinking as much as we should, not getting enough sleep, not getting enough oxygen. It's hard for people to understand how we all actually felt, which is why we could all bond."

"It was rewarding because now we get to talk about it like this," Hamner added.
 
Something else about the trip that was rewarding was getting to do it together, as teammates. 

"I am so glad that I had Kerri, a teammate, on the trip because it was someone that I knew would just be there for me," Hamner said. "Even if I wasn't totally comfortable with everyone yet, I was comfortable enough with Kerri that anything I had going on, I could go to her."

"Having Anna was definitely a sense of comfort going into a class where we didn't really know anybody," Coffman added. "I feel like we're pretty familiar with each other's limits of our bodies since we've been around each other in sport. We've seen each other during the fitness test or during overtime of a game, which is kind of comparable to the limits we had to push ourselves to on Kilimanjaro."

The toughest part of the climb for both athletes was summit night. Essentially, it is the final push to get to the top of the mountain. However, they still had a whole other 3,000 feet to climb. They woke up at 11 p.m. and had to leave by midnight. 

After climbing for countless consecutive hours in the middle of a blizzard that closed their route a day after they got off, they finally reached the top of the mountain. 

"I cried, because I was like, 'I can't believe I did this,'" Coffman said. "I didn't have enough energy to cry, but I shed a few tears and I was really thankful and really proud of myself that I was able to do something like that."

"Mine [feeling] was just relief," Hamner added. "We'd been hiking for eight hours at that point, so just finally seeing what I came to Tanzania for. It was so exhilarating."

"You're honestly too tired to feel a lot of emotions," Hamner continued. "So it was more of an 'OK, cool,' and then back down again. But once it hits you later is when it really feels good that you did it."

When they reached the mountaintop, Hamner and Coffman posed for a photo with an Elon soccer flag, something they had wanted to do from the very beginning.

"That was our plan all along," Coffman said. "Going to Tanzania and being able to hold the Elon soccer flag up. It's a part of us that we could bring abroad and represent. If it wasn't for Elon or Elon soccer, I don't think either of us would be able to go on this trip."
 
Hamner also raved about their program director, Rodney Parks, and the university as a whole for creating opportunities like this for students to experience.

"Shoutout to Rodney Parks because he really made that an experience to remember," Hamner said. "Elon has put together so many cool trips, I was just excited to be a part of one of them because the memories that you make there, you can't trade that in for anything."

As they returned to Elon, both Hamner and Coffman have brought back lessons that they will take with them for the rest of their lives.

"Just how far you can push yourself," Hamner said. "The first thing to give up is your mind. As long as you don't give up mentally, you can physically pretty much do anything."

"Being able to do something that is completely out of my comfort zone," Coffman added. "Just proving to myself that I can do hard things and I am capable of doing things that seem impossible. That is a really big motivator for me as I continue through college, finishing out my degree and heading onto the next steps in my life."

---

'Rising Phoenix' is a new student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department's various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on Twitter (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Jacob Kisamore at jkisamore@elon.edu.

---