Medical field or soccer field? Taghon chose both.
Marissa Taghon, a senior nursing major at Piedmont University, also held the job of being a captain on the women’s soccer team.
Taghon has played soccer all her life. The past 17 years, to be exact. She has played at many levels of competition, including recreational, high school and college.
“I chose Piedmont because I was told I would be able to play soccer as well as be in the nursing program,” said Taghon. “As you can imagine, my schedule is hectic trying to juggle both. My weekly schedule typically consists of clinicals two days a week, classes three days a week and soccer practice almost every night from 8-10 p.m.”
Head coach Timmy McCormack has had a handful of girls on the team in the past, both playing on the field and being a part of the nursing program. For the most part, each girl has been successful in both. Coach McCormack believes that studies come first and understands his athletes are at Piedmont for a degree.
“I gave up a lot of practices,” said Taghon. “I had to figure out what was more important to me. I tried my best to be at both, but sometimes I had to choose. I would try to miss the less important games if it came down to it. My coach would also do his best to work around it and talk to our faculty to make us miss as little as possible, but when push comes to shove, we must put our education before our sport.”
With such a demanding schedule and extraordinarily long and draining days, Taghon had to give up some of her social life.
“I would get asked to go out on the weekends, but I couldn’t,” said Taghon. “Many weekends, I studied in my room or the education building. If I were on an away trip with the team, I would study on the bus or in my hotel room. I’m not the most social person, so giving up some of my social life wasn’t a big deal for me.”
Taghon stayed on top of her studies and athletics at Piedmont. She ensured she was always current on what was happening within her classes and assignments. Taghon’s nursing professors only had an issue with their student-athletes in the fall of 2023.
“Three months into the fall semester of 2023, also my last soccer season, the nursing program had trouble with athletes missing too many classes or simply not showing up to things,” said Taghon. “This confused me because I had never seen this happening, but this resulted in a new attendance policy that stated that after a student in the nursing program had missed two classes, they would have a mandatory sit-down meeting with the professors to go over grades and evaluate their time in the program. This sit-down meeting would determine if they continued in the program or not.”
The nursing program at Piedmont implemented the new attendance policy towards the end of the soccer teams’ season, right at the time of playoffs. The team didn’t have a set schedule currently. The team knew who and where they would play based on other teams and their game results.
“I don’t know or understand their motive,” said Taghon. “We were never falling behind. I don’t know if it made them mad that we could successfully do both or that we couldn’t give them an indefinite schedule at the time, but it felt like they just wanted to take it away from us. They wanted us to pick one or the other.”
For the remainder of the soccer season, Taghon made it to class successfully and the playoff games. Although this new policy within the nursing program didn’t affect Taghon much, she stated, “I can see this affecting future nursing majors who are also athletes.” Taghon expects to graduate with a nursing degree in the spring of 2024.
Taghon’s word of advice to those who are aspiring student-athletes is “to learn how to manage your time and figure out what’s most important to you and what you’re willing to sacrifice.”
