Forward Thinking

Trinity soccer star juggled award-winning research, trips abroad, and academic excellence

by Jeremy Gerlach

Molly Sheridan ’23, a political science and business double major from St. Louis, chose a path at Trinity that kept her on her toes.

When she wasn’t pouring in goals from the center-forward spot as a captain for Trinity’s nationally contending soccer team, she was staring down global problems like food accessibility. The result of all that hard work? Winning awards like an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

An NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship gives a senior $10,000 to use in an accredited graduate program. Only 126 studentathletes in the nation across all three NCAA divisions receive this award every year. Yet, Molly’s score represents the fifth straight year the Tigers have had a student-athlete earn the award.

Next, Molly is headed out to the prestigious Coro Fellowship civic leadership program in St. Louis. She then plans on using her scholarship at a dual law and public health master’s degree program.

How do students like Molly keep netting these types of successes? Even for a soccer forward, success at Trinity is all about who has your back.

Trinity’s liberal arts curriculum gives students like Molly the flexibility and the support to find the academic path that will allow them to pursue all their passions. And Molly found hers through the worlds of political science and global health, where she conducted extensive research on food-related issues. “I did a few projects on female college athletes with eating disorders, and then that kind of manifested into a couple different research projects with my political science adviser,” Molly says. “I even did research on a woman’s right to breastfeed during humanitarian crises.”

As if juggling this research and academic path with soccer wasn’t enough, Molly also found time to get the most out of an extensive set of hands-on opportunities at Trinity.

She spent a semester studying abroad across Geneva, Switzerland, and Zagreb, Croatia, in Spring 2022 as part of a Global Health and Development Policy program. She also served as president of the Spurs sorority and as a Trinity Student Government Association senator, and she held a successful internship at AHC Consulting LLC in St. Louis in Summer 2022 as a public relations consulting intern.

Balancing these priorities took a lot of support. And Molly says she got it from a familiar source: faculty.

“Being at Trinity, I had an opportunity to uncover some interests and passions thanks to some really, really amazing professors. [They] taught me that although the public interest law field can be kind of daunting, if I help even one person find those supportive networks they need, I’ll still be making a difference.”

Molly points specifically to her faculty adviser and political science professor Rosa Aloisi, Ph.D., and business administration professor Jacob Tingle ’95, Ed.D., for their guidance and support.

Molly credits Professor Tingle with her opportunity to apply for the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. In March 2023, she also traveled with Professor Tingle, education professor Angela Breidenstein ’91, M’92, Ed.D., two other Trinity students, and a December 2022 graduate for a sports diplomacy trip to Uzbekistan as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Youth Leadership through Sport Program.

“The professors and the faculty here see that small spark of interest in you,” she says, “and then continually guide and connect you to every next step that there is.”

As a student-athlete, Molly is also fueled by this level of support on the soccer field. She was named the 2022 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Offensive Player of the Year, is a four-time All-SCAC honoree, and was also named a United Soccer Coaches First Team All-American and a Scholar All-American for the 2022 season.

Molly says Head Women’s Soccer Coach Dylan Harrison and her teammates pushed her until she was ready to shine.

“Coach Harrison uses me as his perfect example of a player coming in who didn’t play the whole game as a freshman but worked hard. By the end of my freshman year, I was getting that playing time, and I was getting those starting opportunities,” she says.

So, when Molly says her successes at Trinity are a team result, she means it.

“I feel a lot of gratitude for what I was able to do here,” she says. “I’m super excited, super proud, and just ... [have] a ton of gratitude for all of the amazing people I met throughout my time at Trinity.”