“The respect I have for them, I can't articulate,” Inside The Lives of Vanderbilt Football's Three ROTC Members
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NASHVILLE—It’s 11:00 A.M. when the door of Vanderbilt’s indoor football facility swings open and Gabe Fisher paces out of the building towards the end of practice and gets on his bike. He’s still got his ankle and wrist tape on during practice when he gets on his bike, but he’s got no time to spare. He has to get to his statistics class to take an exam.
Fisher is sweating “everywhere” as he puts the bike down, but he’s made it. He takes the exam, but–in an on-brand move for Thursday–he’s not done yet. When Fisher is finished with his exam, he gets on his bike and heads to another class. He’s finally able to shower after the conclusion of that class, but there’s no time to relax. Fisher has to get to his ROTC lab–which is a hands-on set of battle drills that’s conducted at Edmond Warner Park.
Before Fisher ever left Vanderbilt football’s indoor facility, he woke up at 4:30 A.M. for a few mandatory fitness tests then went straight to Vanderbilt’s morning practice. How about that for a day?
“Thursdays are the worst,” he jokes.
These are the types of days Fisher signed up for when he chose Vanderbilt and its ROTC program–a nationwide program that trains students to become commissioned officers in the United States Armed Forces. Fisher initially only opted to pursue ROTC because it was his only way to become a Vanderbilt student, but he’s since embraced it for what it is.
Fisher’s brother, Max, and Vanderbilt tight end Elijah Rooney have similar sentiments when they talk about their choice to join ROTC and its impact on their lives. Those three Vanderbilt players have chosen harder day-to-day lives than anyone on Vanderbilt’s roster, but ROTC is their path to the lives they desire.
It got them to Vanderbilt. It helped them become members of Clark Lea’s program. They believe that it’s making them stronger people and it will allow them to serve their country when their time in school is over–which is something all of them take pride in having the chance to do. Their lifestyle isn’t for everybody, but fighting through grueling Thursdays is a pitfall they’re willing to take.
“It’s truly remarkable what they do and I admire them wholeheartedly,” Vanderbilt linebacker Nick Rinaldi said. “A lot of people on this team couldn’t do that, probably including me. It takes a lot of discipline to do that sort of thing, balance school at Vanderbilt, football and ROTC.”
For a month of the 2026 summer, Lea didn’t have his fullback and Vanderbilt offensive line coach Chris Klenakis was short a body in practice. But, they were okay with that. Gabe and Max Fisher had other obligations they had to fulfill, and Lea wasn’t going to stand in the way.
Each of them were entering their final year of ROTC and had to go to their cadet summer training in Fort Knox. The summer training essentially serves as the ROTC final exam and is the cumulation of everything they learned leading up to it. The time away consists of fitness tests, shooting tests, obstacle courses, leadership test and 11 days in the field–which Max Fisher says is his favorite part.
Of the nine available dates, Max chose the sixth and was lucky to have favorable luck with the weather–outside of a heat wave he encountered. Others weren’t as lucky and had to walk through mud up to their hips every day. Even with Max’s luck and what he calls an “awesome” summer experience, he couldn’t help but think about what he left back in Nashville.
“Missing football wasn’t fun,” Max said. “Missing a month, especially getting back into the swing of things, was tough. Our coaches, coach Steiner do a great job getting us back into shape, but getting back right before camp was a little rough.”
Vanderbilt’s fall camp is considered by some in the program to be the most physically and mentally taxing period of the year, but the program’s three ROTC members were among the most well equipped on the roster to handle it. It’s not as if they breeze through football workouts, but they’ve seen worse.
There isn’t much that Lea and company can put the Fishers and Rooney through that would compare to a three-hour AFT–the Army Fitness Test, which is an official physical fitness test for enrolled Army ROTC that includes deadlifts, countless pushups, plank holds and a two-mile run. That’s not to mention their once-a-semester FTX–otherwise known as field training exercises, which happen once a semester at Fort Campbell. Rooney went through the test in the days prior to Vanderbilt’s 2025 opener against Charleston Southern.
There’s undoubtedly been a moment for all three of Vanderbilt football’s ROTC members where they’ve questioned how they’ve gotten through what they have, but they’ve learned to keep pushing. In the end, Gabe Fisher wants to join the Army reserves on the infantry or financial side. Max Fisher wants to serve at least four years active duty and is hoping to enter the engineering regiment following graduation. Rooney has his eyes on the cybersecurity branch of the army reserves, which aligns with his computer science major–although he’s also an engineering major.
Managing life as an engineering major, ROTC member and Vanderbilt football player is something Gabe Fisher deemed to be impossible until Rooney came in a year later and did it. Fisher jokes that he’s soft because he chose to major in human and organizational development rather than engineering, but Rooney pushes back on that idea.
When he weighs the impact of living the ROTC life in addition to playing SEC football, Rooney points back at Fisher. He recalls Fisher scoring a touchdown against Missouri in 2024 in the fallout of an arduous ROTC week. That, he says, is evidence that the lifestyle can actually be a benefit on the field rather than a hindrance.
“It’s easier,” Rooney said. “I think just having like that gritty mindset that you get from doing all that stuff, from being in the military, getting yelled at by officers and stuff, and then coming over here and getting yelled at by coaches, it's not much different.”
The messages clearly mean something to Max Fisher, who has been asked by multiple Montgomery Bell Academy faculty members to come back. The faculty members want Fisher to speak to a group of high schoolers at his old stomping grounds to share his ROTC experience.
A time for his speech hasn’t been set up yet, but he fully intends to make it happen. When Max gets in front of the crowd of students that are in the place he once was, he knows what he’ll tell them. And when he does, he will mean it.
“I don’t know what I’d be doing without ROTC,” Max said. “It's just something that's going to challenge you and ultimately like make you a better leader in whatever you do, you're going to pull something from it. I always tell myself I'm gonna take something from it.”
Max’s pitch comes with an admission that the ROTC, college football life “kind of sucks” sometimes. He wholeheartedly believes it’s worth it, though. When Max initially opted to pursue ROTC at Trinity University–a Division-III school in San Antonio, Texas–he leaned heavily on the fact that the program didn’t require a four-year commitment. He thought about dropping out of ROTC after his year there. When he transferred to Vanderbilt as a sophomore, he kept in mind that he could transfer and start fresh again once the year concluded.
Two years later, though, Max is still standing there on the turf McGugin Center practice field in a black uniform discussing how he’s better for what he’s been through. Gabe Fisher and Rooney echo similar sentiments when they refer to their experience.
Gabe loves ROTC for its applicability to everyday life, business and organizational leadership. He loves it for the grit it instills and the way it’s connected him with his brother and Rooney, as well. Those three have gone through things together that most won’t understand, but they believe the fruits of their labor are easy to see in them.
The Fishers and Rooney aren’t Vanderbilt football’s three most talented players–and aren’t anywhere close–but they impact the program because of who they are. They impact it because of what they’re about. They impact it because of how their experiences have shaped them.
“It makes you a stronger man,” Rooney said. “It's kind of like juggling two full time jobs. But it’s great stuff. The people are amazing and you're always learning a lot.”
Joshua Rooney is a military intelligence captain in the army and is one of Elijah Rooney’s biggest role models, only second to his parents. Joshua went through ROTC at Claremont Mckenna College–a private, liberal arts college located 35 miles from Los Angeles and is currently in reserves.
Both Gabe and Max Fisher have brothers that served in the US Navy as well as uncles that served as US Marines.
When Rooney and the Fishers are reminded of the Salute to Service promotion surrounding Vanderbilt’s September 5 opener against Austin Peay, they think of all those that are important to them that have come before them. When they refer to the promotion, they don’t refer to themselves–Rooney says he’s just a guy that wears a uniform and goes to college classes. They haven’t served yet, but the idea that Vanderbilt is acknowledging their loved ones and their sacrifice isn’t lost on them.
“I’ve always thought that's the best thing about the football season,” Gabe Fisher said. “Just showing appreciation to those that sacrifice time with their families, sometimes their lives just so that we can play the game we love. And I think we should do that, honestly, more.”
“There are men and women out there right now that are deployed, I really want to try to give them the credit for that,” Rooney said. “It means a lot that the school takes the time to think about the service members and stuff and what's being sacrificed for us to be able to put the lives that we live.”
In a few years–but not before Gabe Fisher plays a fifth season at Vanderbilt, which he intends to do–Vanderbilt’s three ROTC members could be the ones being spotlighted at a Vanderbilt game. They could be the ones protecting the country. Saturday, they’ll suit up with those who currently do in mind.
Even then, though, Lea believes his three players should get their flowers.
“The respect I have for them, I can't articulate,” Lea said. “I'm glad that they are being charged with protecting our country. I think these are the kind of people that need to hold those positions and carry that responsibility.”
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Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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