Princeton athletes don’t stop being athletes when they leave campus for the summer; they develop plans to manage training, internships, and recovery during their time away from Old Nassau.
From international competition to summer ball to at-home training, senior field jumper Georgie Scoot, junior baseball pitcher Elliott Eaton, and junior wrestler Ty Whalen all approached their summer differently — with the same goal of returning ready to succeed back on campus.
Scoot, one of the best long jumpers in the nation and a two-time Ivy League women’s long jump champion, took part in the European Championships for Great Britain’s U-23 team. She competed alongside former teammate Mena Scatchard ’25 — one of the most decorated Tiger distance runners.
Normally, summer is the off-season for the track team, a much-needed respite after a long seven-month season of indoor and outdoor meets. This year was different for Scoot.
“With the European circuit going so late, my focus was really on extending my peak for as long as possible without burning out — I had already been competing for about eight months,” Scoot told The Daily Princetonian.
“The biggest change was just maintaining training and performance for that much longer,” she added.
Training back home was initially a challenge for Scoot, who hails from Devon, a rural area in Southern England.
“Training was a bit tricky since the nearest track is about an hour away,” she told the ‘Prince.’ When she moved to London in July, however, her life got a bit easier.
In London, track was not the only thing on her mind. Scoot worked over 50 hours a week for JLL — a commercial real estate firm — as an intern on their Living Capital Markets team.
Between analyzing real estate deals and forecasting cash flows, Scoot traveled with the British team to Bergen, Norway, to face off with the best of European track.
“It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life. I have to give so much credit to [Princeton] Coach [Reuben] Jones — before Princeton, I had never made an international team,” Scoot said.
The experience convinced Scoot to pursue track post-Princeton.
“Growing up, I played water polo and field hockey, so one thing I love about track at Princeton is the strong team culture,” Scoot told the ‘Prince’. “Experiencing that same sense of camaraderie on the international circuit really cemented my decision to pursue track beyond college.”
While Scoot was busy preparing for the international circuit, junior wrestler Ty Whalen spent his summer rehabbing an injured knee, preparing to return to the mat, and completing an internship.
Whalen, an All-Ivy Honorable Mention last season, wasn’t able to wrestle until June due to his knee injury. Although Whalen was recovering, he certainly wasn’t resting.
Whalen told the ‘Prince’ he spent the month of May in rehab and lifting. “I was able to lift as much as I wanted for upper body, and then weeks later, I was able to incorporate my lower body,” he said. By June, he was able to wrestle four to five times a week and lift three to four times a week.
The drive that motivates Princeton athletes to compete at the highest level doesn’t get left at campus over the summer.
“It's more painful to not be training than to be training,” Whalen said to the ‘Prince.’ “I'm someone who loves training. I think a lot of wrestlers are the same way, they just can't really get off the mat, so I end up just spending the time that I'm not wrestling, just lifting.”
“I have a [wrestling] club that I went to growing up in high school, and there's actually a few Division I wrestlers and D3 wrestlers that live around me,” Whalen explained. “I'm always reaching out to train with them.”
And if training, lifting, and rehabbing weren’t enough, Whalen, like Scoot, also found time to complete an internship.
“I've done an internship every summer, and we have all of our guys doing internships as well,” he said. He and his teammates wrestle before and after work.
Some of his teammates, like sophomore Ethan Rivera, woke up as early as five in the morning to make sure they got their training in. Whalen is hoping to work full-time next summer, where he too will have to learn to balance career aspirations and goals on the mat.
After spending numerous hours on the mat in June and July, the team takes all of August off from wrestling, while keeping the same lifting schedule.
“They want us to come off the mat in August because they want us to be ready to go, because come September, it will be hard,” Whalen explained to the ‘Prince’. “And that break that you might crave, you won't really get.”
Eaton, a relief pitcher for the baseball team, took his talents up to the North Shore of Boston for the summer. He played for the North Shore Navigators, a squad in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Summer leagues are popular for college sports, such as baseball and soccer.
“Most guys play at least one to two summers, and some guys do an internship one summer then play another summer,” Eaton explained to the ‘Prince.’ “Some guys will just play every summer.”
The spring season factors into the decision to play summer ball. A starting pitcher who racks up a lot of innings over the season might choose to take a break from competition.
Eaton wanted to get as many innings in as possible. “I didn't have a great spring or freshman year, and I just knew I needed to go somewhere where I can get experience against good hitters and get more innings under my belt to be better for this 2026 spring,” he told the ‘Prince.’
The Navigators played a packed schedule with over 40 games in two months. That meant more than five games a week, leaving little time for practice. Eaton pitched 25 and a third innings over the summer, nearly matching his seasonal workload at Princeton, and posted a commendable 3.20 ERA and 1.30 WHIP.
The baseball coaching staff keeps track of players’ performances while maintaining distance from the day-to-day results.
“I think [the coaches] do a good job of realizing that you can only teach so much ... [the] best players create their own habits and routines and mindset,” Eaton said.
Across different sports, coaches take varying approaches over the summer, with Scoot telling the ‘Prince’ that track coaches maintain close ties over the summer. “The coaches are always checking in, making sure we’re not only training well but also feeling good both physically and mentally," she said.
Wrestlers spend their season building up muscle and then furiously cutting down to make weight for matches. Even in the offseason, diet plays a major role in a wrestler’s training for the season. According to Whalen, the wrestling team provides lifting and nutrition programs for its players to stay in shape even when they are off the dining plan and don’t have access to the Princeton facilities.
For all three athletes, though, summer training helped ensure they returned to campus as prepared as possible.
“If you're not in shape, you're exposed the first week of September,” said Whalen.
Harrison Blank is a head Sports editor at the ‘Prince.’
Doug Schwartz is an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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