This Friday, Donald Rolle is scheduled to receive his "T" Ring, a Texas State tradition and token of achievement for student-athletes graduating as a Bobcat.
 
However, Rolle will not be in attendance at the morning ceremony.
 
The two-time Texas State Academic Achievement award winner will be in Louisiana alongside his teammates competing for a Sun Belt Conference outdoor track and field championship.
 
While he knows where he will be – and where he could be as one of 41 Bobcats receiving their "T" Ring this spring – the same could not be said this time a year ago. In May 2021, Rolle was at an all-time low.
 
Loss of family. A lost spot on the 4x400 relay team. Injuries. Working the night shift at a fast-food restaurant to pay the bills his scholarship did not cover. Grades slipping for a usually great student.
 
The burden of it all became overwhelming. It required something Rolle is known for.
 
A never give up mentality.


 
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Rolle is the son of two former track athletes. His parents met through the sport. His father, Donald, is originally from the Bahamas and ran the 400-meter. His mother, Beverly, was a sprinter from Texas, running in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. The two met while competing. Donald Rolle ended up moving from a Texas junior college to attend the same college as Beverly and compete in track together.
 
While the younger Rolle could be considered destined to run track due to his lineage, the sport was not his first love. Born and raised in the Bahamas, Rolle primarily played basketball while growing up in Abaco. When he and his family moved back to Texas at the start of his American high school experience (in the Bahamas, high school starts at seventh grade), he had yet to compete in the sport.
 
Junior year arrived, and Rolle eventually decided to participate in track for the first time – once basketball season was over, of course, since basketball season crosses over with track.
 
For Chisholm Trail High School in Fort Worth, Rolle went on to become a three-time state qualifier: in the 4x100 and 4x400 as a junior and then 4x400 as a senior.
 
However, getting noticed in an individual sport like track and field is difficult when your best performances are on relay teams. Rolle elected to walk on at Western Texas College in Snyder, Texas. It's located an hour-plus in between Lubbock, Midland, San Angelo and Abilene but one of the top junior colleges for sprinting.
 
"I was fast, but I wasn't really looked at because I ran the 4x400," said Rolle. "My 200 was good – I made the regionals – but it wasn't that good. I never ran the open 400."
 
He earned a scholarship in his second year with the Westerners after qualifying for the NJCAA Outdoor Championships in May 2018. He qualified for 2019 NJCAA Indoor Championships and was getting recruited by former Texas State assistant coach Ray Williams.
 
A month into being in a familiar role as a leg in the 4x4, Rolle was finally progressing like he wanted. He was battling through hamstring injuries – a persistent theme throughout his track career – but still getting the attention from Division I opportunities.
 
In the indoor nationals in Pittsburg, Kan., Rolle and his three other group members were lined up and ready to score points – they were one of the top-qualifying teams coming into the meet – but a miscue ensued. It was followed by a stroke of luck.
 
"We had the top times in the 4x400 at nationals and were about to break the record," said Rolle, painting the picture of the circumstances. "And this dude from Barton (Community) College hit me, and I dropped the baton. I was mad, so I threw (the baton). Coach Ray said he saw the fire in my eyes. And he recruited me to Texas State."
 
He arrived in San Marcos in the fall of 2019, and was ready to compete for the Bobcats starting with the indoor season in 2020. Injuries slowed him down again, though, and then the global pandemic ended every competitor's season.
 
Rolle kept doing what he does best when he is away from the track. The former Scholar All-America selection in junior college earned the first of his two Academic Excellence awards (so far) after earning a grade point average between 3.5 and 3.9 in the fall or spring semesters of 2020.
 
A son of a teacher, Rolle learned his studious nature from his mother. He was even her student in the seventh and eighth grade in computer science while in the Bahamas.
 
"Even when I was younger, she would always be in my face about school," said Rolle. "She doesn't play that."
 
When collegiate meets started to come back in 2021, Rolle faced his archnemesis again: injuries. He tried to battle back and overcome the early setbacks for the indoor season. As he got closer to competing, he traveled with the team to Akron in early February. It was the last meet before the Sun Belt indoor championships. He was feeling pressure to get back into competition.
 
But the pressure paled to what he faced when he got a call from one of his sisters.
 
"She said my brother might not make it through the night," said Rolle. "That whole time, and with my leg hurt, my head was not there."
 
Rolle's brother, Calvon, was not Rolle's brother by blood but by everything else. The Rolle family adopted him into theirs and was a key piece in Donald's upbringing. Rolle, who also has a younger half-brother and two older sisters, relied on Calvon like a traditional sibling relationship.
 
"Whenever someone asked me, 'How many brothers do you have?' I would say two," said Rolle. "He was my brother. We talked all the time. He showed me what to do. He was there for everything. He was us."
 
Calvon was living in the Bahamas and had recovered from COVID when Rolle got the call. The disease turned into a serious case of pneumonia. It eventually took his life. Rolle and his family went back to his home country for the funeral. When he got back to the United States, he was substituted out from the 4x400 relay team.
 
"That hurt me a lot," said Rolle. "I just wanted a next chance when I came back. To run, to do something."
 
And the losses were piling up on each other. A year earlier, in August 2020, Rolle faced the loss of another family member: his aunt. Someone he calls "my angel."
 
With his normal spot on the team gone, the constant feeling of mourning weighing him down, and the challenges of being a student-athlete with a job on the side, Rolle's world was dark. He would get off of his late-night shift at Wendy's and be left to only his thoughts.
 
"You're coming home, sad, and eating junk food from Wendy's," said Rolle. "I was just going through it."
 
The mental health struggles started to affect something Rolle always seemed to have a handle of: his grades. He failed his first class ever, in forensic science, that spring.
 
"That was my worst semester," said Rolle. "I was working late nights and was not focused. After all that stuff that happened, I should've put more effort into it."
 
Climbing out of the hole did not necessarily need effort. It needed time.
 
"As time went on, you have to accept they're gone," said Rolle.
 
As the calendar moved past the tough spring and into the summer, Rolle realized he was not done. He wanted one more shot athletically, and he still had courses to finish up academically.
 
"During the summer, I was still somehow getting the notifications on the (team messaging) app about the track team," said Rolle. "So, I saw Coach (John) Frazier was hired (in August 2021). I talked to my mom and asked should I just ask to come back for one more year? I'm still in school. It wouldn't hurt."
 
Rolle made a quick call to the newly named Director of Track and Field/Cross Country before the official start of the semester.
 
"(Coach Frazier) let me back on, surprisingly," said Rolle. "I didn't think he was going to let me back on."
 
With his spot back, Rolle began to work hard in the classroom once again. He was close to earning his bachelor's degree in criminal justice, needing only a few classes to complete the requirements. For student development specialist Tori Clark, who joined Texas State late in the spring semester of 2021, she started to notice Rolle becoming more of his self.
 
"For him, quitting was never an option," said Clark. "He said no. He came back and did what he had to do. He's been dealt a hand and he's preserved."
 
After almost two years of not competing in a meet, Rolle returned to the track this past January. He ran the 200 for the first time since his first junior college meet in 2018 as well as the 400.
 
A month later, at the Sun Belt Indoor Championships, Rolle competed in the distance medley relay. He also attempted to qualify for the 400 finals, but he finished 14th in the prelims. In his words, he thought he was done for the rest of the meet.
 
"The next day, I didn't think (coach Trent Edgerton) was going to put me on the 4x4, so I was chilling at the track meet," said Rolle. "He came up to me and said, 'I'm going to put you on the 4x4.' And I was like, 'Huh?!'"
 
For Edgerton, in his first year at Texas State, he saw Rolle in the DMR the night before and knew he was capable of stepping in when a spot on the 4x4 suddenly opened up.
 
"At any meet, especially a championship meet, the unknown will and can occur," said Edgerton. "Everyone there has to be ready and Donald was ready. The reason we put him on the relay is that I believed he could handle the run."
 
The relay team of Rolle, Taahir Kelly, Brian West and Dominick Yancy handled and delivered a Sun Belt Indoor Championships meet record with a time of 3:11.29. It was the fourth fastest time in school history. It was also the second time in as many years and fifth time since 2015 the Bobcats claimed the title in the event.
 
And for Rolle, after all his individual hardship, it was the first time he had finished in first place as a college athlete.
 
The gold medal finish also happened on February 22. The same day a year earlier he lost Calvon.
 


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Rolle's journey of adversity has a twisted line of coincidences. While he won a conference championship on the one-year anniversary of his brother's death, loss on a celebratory day is nothing new.
 
He lost his aunt on August 11, 2020. August 11 also being Calvon's birthday. It is why he has a tattoo of "8/11" on his forearm.
 
And this Friday – the day he is supposed to walk for graduation from Texas State if he were not competing – is May 13, his late aunt's birthday.
 
Rolle's family will be joining him in Lafayette for the Sun Belt outdoor championships. If he can compete – he is working through injuries once again – it will be only his second outdoor meet in the last three years. The other one was only 10 days ago at Texas A&M.
 
The Rolle family was there together as they all suffered loss. They were also there for Rolle as his biggest source of support through his athletic lows in spring of 2021.
 
"They have faith in me when I don't have faith in myself," said Rolle. "They're coming to (conference championships) with me, and I'm hurt. But they still believe I can do it.
 
"Even when I'm down, they make me rise back up."
 
After graduation and competition, Rolle has plans to become a firefighter. He has always aspired for the role, but is drawn to it because he can help people. Like his family helped him when he needed it most.
 
Rolle's collegiate career will end with having never experienced a full season due to injuries. This is after he got into track late. Walked on to a junior college. Dropped a baton at nationals. Got to Texas State, but battled injuries throughout and lost a spot on the relay team. Lost some of the influential people in his life.
 
But through it all, he helped the Bobcats win a gold medal and set a conference record. He returned to an outdoor meet for the first time in three years. He qualified for one last go at the conference outdoor meet and will try to extend the season even more into NCAA regionals. He excelled in the classroom.
 
Rolle now carries a strengthened perspective after all that he has faced.
 
"I just have to muscle through it," said Rolle. "But that's life."
 
And most importantly, he will achieve what every student-athlete is trying to accomplish in life: earning a degree. For Clark, she can see why Rolle reached this point despite the obstacles.
 
"He's a dedicated hard worker and won't stop until the job is done," said Clark. "He's able to take the setbacks, and see those as a learning experience, and use that as fuel for the rest of his life.
 
"If you could embody the word perseverance, that would be Donald."