Imagine waking up at 5:30 a.m. You stayed up until 1 a.m. the night before working on homework. You’re currently running on four hours of sleep, and now you have to go to football practice along with the rest of your team. That’s how Caleb Bayer starts his morning every day. As a senior football captain, neuroscience major, Bengal Lancer, biochemistry peer tutor, resident assistant (RA) and pre-med student, Bayer lives many different lives on campus.
Bayer starts his day with football practice. The players have to be in the weight room at 6 a.m. to begin their workout, which is followed by morning meetings where the team prepares for the upcoming game. Dressed in football gear, the players then head to the field to start practice with his teammates at 7:15 a.m.
“I think it’s the most unifying thing. That’s where the bonding comes from. It’s early, and it’s hard, but we’re doing it together,” Bayer said. “I think that inspires a lot of the camaraderie and ‘embracing the suck’ together for the common goal, which is to win the conference.”
As a team captain, Bayer has a specific duty to the team. To become a captain, the rest of the team must vote in the player.
“The fact that he got voted as a captain by his teammates speaks volumes of him. He’s dependable, he’s accountable. You know what you’re going to get from him every single day,” Offensive Line Coach Wade Lytal, class of ‘09, said. “He shows up ready to work and comes prepared. He does a really good job personifying what a true student athlete is supposed to be.”
Following practice, Bayer peer tutors for biochemistry students and attends his first class at 9:30 a.m. As a neuroscience major, Bayer intends to work in the medicinal field. This semester, Bayer must take neurobiology, which, according to him, is his hardest class this semester.
“The lab takes up 90% of my time. It’s just hard content, and it takes a lot to understand it,” Bayer said. “It’s a lot of content and integrating stuff you already knew in ways that you didn’t know you could integrate.”
Outside of academics, Bayer is a part of Fraternity and Sorority Life. As an orientation chair of the Bengal Lancer fraternity, Bayer has additional dedications to the club.
“It’s nice being the smallest fraternity on campus because you’re super tight-knit with the guys in the club. We hang out all of the time,” Bayer said. “A lot of us are in football, so we get to play football against each other in the mornings and bond through that, too.”
Bayer is also an RA in James H. Calvert Hall. As an RA, Bayer is responsible for the residents living in his hall. Bayer said that being an RA doesn’t add extra stress to his schedule, and he even enjoys it at times.
When he isn’t on the football field, attending classes in CSI, studying in the library, upholding duties as a Lancer or taking time for his residents, Bayer has free time, which he spends with his girlfriend, Anna McCormack, senior marketing major.
“I’m also really busy, so we live our lives, doing what we need to do, and then we get together whenever we have free time,” McCormack said. “A lot of semesters, we try to take classes together. We took our creative expression together and built a board game. We figure out a creative way to do what we need to do, but do it together.”
Concluding his day with homework, Bayer often stays up until midnight. Bayer said he typically gets 5 hours of sleep before his morning alarm rings, signaling the start of another day.
Football practice, classes, peer tutoring, studying in the library, working for his fraternity, RA duties, time with his girlfriend and late-night homework: This represents just one day of Caleb Bayer’s life. The next time you’re on campus, you may spot his Lancer jersey and cheerful smile speeding to his next task of the day, which is just a fraction of the many lives he leads.
