Former Conference Carolinas Player of the Year Ashley Rogers Credits Student-Athlete Experience for Preparing Her to Work as Neurosurgical PA

Rogers Action 2

The 90th anniversary of the formation of Conference Carolinas is on Dec. 6, 2020.

Sometimes a bad moment can be turned into something great. A perfect example is Lees-McRae women’s soccer legend Ashley Rogers.
 
She is not doing what she is today without a terrible moment on the pitch transforming her life off the pitch.
 
All soccer players – and really all student-athletes – will tell you that one of their biggest fears is tearing their ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), but when Rogers had this happen to her at Lees-McRae she found a unique way to turn a negative into a positive.
 
“Before I tore my ACL, our goalkeeper actually tore her ACL as well and I had the opportunity to watch her surgery, which actually happened a week before mine,” Rogers noted. “It was the first time I had ever seen a PA working and I kind of was able to understand what their role was and what they were doing. I thought it was pretty amazing and I thought, ‘Wow, I would want to do that.’”
 
Fast forward to 2020 and the 1996 Conference Carolinas Women’s Soccer Player of the Year is now working as a neurosurgical physician assistant at Orlando Regional Medical Center in downtown Orlando, Florida.
 
Despite knowing that she might eventually one day be a PA, Rogers continued her efforts with the beautiful game for a few years after graduating from Lees-McRae.
 
“I did a grad assistantship at Eastern Illinois and I stayed there for three years and coached and continued to play soccer on my own,” Rogers said. “Two more ACL tears later, I decided it was time to focus on my career and I went to PA school. I loved coaching, I really did. I loved coaching at the college level. I just knew it was time to focus on other things. It was definitely hard. I am still the biggest soccer fan ever, but I just don’t play it as much as I would like.”
 
A native of Florida, Rogers was easily sold on Lees-McRae “because nothing can beat a fall soccer season at Lees-McRae in the mountains.”
 
“Going to a smaller school is not necessarily for everybody, but it was everything for me. It was a tight-knit community and I felt like I was part of a family. I felt important to the college.”
 
The Lees-McRae women’s soccer family from Rogers’ time on campus continues to this day. In fact, Rogers and her teammates turned another negative into a positive in 2020.
 
“With quarantine and COVID it has been a unique opportunity because now we have a bi-weekly Zoom meeting,” Rogers relayed. “It’s sort of put us all back in touch and now we can spend every other Friday night talking about some of our favorite games and some of our favorite memories from our favorite things in general to even the silly things we did while we were there. It’s been a great way to connect back with teammates that maybe you had lost touch with.”

LMC Team WSOC Rogers

Rogers (1993-96) and all of her teammates, thanks to social media and LMCBobcats.com, still to this day keep up with the women’s soccer program currently under the direction of Cally Morrill.
 
“It’s been awesome, especially now with social media,” Rogers, who finished her career with 55 goals, said. “I hate to age myself, but Facebook was not a thing and the Internet was just coming around when I was at Lees-McRae. I am also so super jealous of the facilities they have now. The facilities are so top-notch and gorgeous there. It’s been fun to watch that advance as well as the quality of the athletes and the competition.”
 
Rogers particularly credits her mentor Rita Smith with getting her to where she is today. Lees-McRae’s Associate Athletic Director/Healthcare Administrator, Smith has been pivotal to the success of many student-athletes since coming to Banner Elk, North Carolina in 1983. 
 
“She basically raised me while I was there,” Rogers said of Smith. “Between the education I received and the athletic opportunity I had there, I feel so lucky to have been able to attend. I brag about it any time I can down here in Florida.”
 
All of those experiences made Rogers into who she is today. She is forever thankful that in a career and working at a hospital that has been challenged by things such as the infamous Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 that she has a background as a Conference Carolinas student-athlete that helped prepare her in numerous ways.
 
“I totally feel like my athletic career at Lees-McRae prepared me to be in a job that you have to be prepared for anything. You always have to be on your toes. I account a lot of my athletic career for putting me where I am today.” 

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Ashley Rogers Graphic

Special thanks to Ashley Rogers for her time and for the photos. The 90th Anniversary Alumni Feature is by Assistant Commissioner Brian Hand.

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