By DARIUS THIGPEN
LongwoodLancers.com

FARMVILLE, Va. – A grinder is someone who will do anything it takes to get the job done. A grinder will put in long hours and work hard even when no one is watching. In baseball, a grinder will draw long at-bats, frustrate pitchers, and won't think twice about taking the extra base. Longwood's senior captain C.J. Roth is a grinder both in baseball and the game of life.
 
For Roth, being a grinder is a badge of honor. The 5-foot-7 infielder relishes the reputation of being a guy who brings toughness to the game.
 
"Being gritty is someone that is just a pest at the plate and doesn't go away," Roth explains, he himself a player known for long at-bats that frustrate pitchers. "I've bought into that philosophy. When I was being recruited, I got noticed for my style of play. For me it's always about playing hard. If your uniform is not dirty when you leave the field, you're doing something wrong."
 
It was that style of play and mentality that caught the eye of Longwood's legendary head coach Charles "Buddy" Bolding, after whom Longwood's field is named. Roth and fellow seniors Travis Burnette, his co-captain, Colton Konvicka, and Allen Ellis are the last group of players recruited by Bolding. Roth's ability and work ethic were two things that helped the Yorktown, Va., native stand out back in his high school days.
 
"That first weekend we played together in high school summer league, you could tell that he definitely played hard, that he loved the game, and he loved being out there," Burnette, Roth's roommate all four years at Longwood, said. "I could tell he was a great baseball player and he really does everything hard whether it's baseball or school; whatever it is, he does it hard, and he always does it the right way, too."
 
Baseball is a large part of Roth's identity but is by no means his only legacy at Longwood. After Roth and Burnette arrived at Longwood, Roth spent time looking for ways to contribute. On the field in 2013 he hit .269 and started 47 games, mostly at shortstop, with a career-high 12 doubles and led the team in sacrifice bunts. Off the field Roth did well in class, receiving recognition from Longwood as a scholar-athlete. The freshman was successful in his first year, quickly adjusting to college life, but Roth was ready for more. He needed a new challenge. That's where a former leader for Longwood baseball stepped in.
 
Scott Burkett, who finished his four-year career at Longwood in 2014, challenged Roth to join him at a Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) meeting in the fall of 2012, just a few months after Roth arrived to campus.
 
"He kind of dragged me into it," Roth said. "I asked, 'What's SAAC?' and then he gave me a quick rundown and I told him I'd be there. I kept going throughout the year and started to get more and more involved."
 
SAAC is a committee made up of student-athletes assembled to provide insight on the student-athlete experience and offer input on the rules, regulations, and policies that affect student-athletes' lives on college campuses. At Longwood, SAAC is led by a six-member elected executive board. Generally, the committee has at least two members from each sport.

 
"SAAC is about giving the student-athletes a face on campus besides just within our sports," current SAAC president Halle Parker said. "We want to connect with other students who aren't part of the athletics department so that we can let them know we care about more things than just working out. We get feedback from all our student-athletes once a month and send our thoughts over to the Big South SAAC and National SAAC."
 
SAAC exists at the majority of NCAA institutions to give athletes a voice. It was a perfect fit for Roth, who is well-known for his vocal leadership style. After attending meetings and continuing to grind for SAAC during his freshman year, Roth worked his way to the role of vice president of SAAC in his sophomore year. By his junior year, Roth was elected SAAC president.
 
Roth was thrown into the leadership position of president due to the acting president that year being unable to compete as an athlete as a senior. Roth, preparing for his third season at Longwood and first season under his current head coach Ryan Mau, had a challenge on his hands.
 
"There was a lot of learning in that time," Roth said. "My day-to-day responsibilities were making sure we were prepared for every event we had coming up and checking with the Big South conference offices if there were any new initiatives or rules that were being addressed or feedback and then to put together the agenda for the next meeting. I checked in on the executive board and made sure we were on pace with what we needed to do. Those were just some of the responsibilities of being president."
 
"As president of SAAC, you send out a lot of e-mails," Parker said. "You have to always be prepared to communicate with people outside of the organization, and you're given a lot of requests to do different things because there's always something going on."
 
With so many things going on just as SAAC president, Roth also made time for school, and all the while never let his off-field responsibilities detract from baseball.
 
"He reminds me of the kids I coached at Navy," said Mau, who coached as an assistant at the Naval Academy for four seasons before joining Longwood in 2015. "There are so many demands on those guys that I had the opportunity to work with. There's a lot on their plate, and C.J. is like that; he's one of those guys who is self-disciplined. He thrives in structure, and he's found a way through service to fill his day very similarly and it's not easy. He does an amazing job balancing everything out and succeeds in that."

Discipline is a part of being a grinder and being a leader. Roth has displayed the ability to be self-motivated and remain well-organized in his career, but it hasn't been easy for the senior.
 
"There have been times when I've called my parents and I told them I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know how I was doing it," Roth said. "I think a lot of it just came down to time management. Keeping a schedule and having an understanding of when to take a little bit of time off. For me the big key was keeping everything organized. That was huge, especially my junior year when everything hit. That was definitely my busiest year since I was SAAC president and I had a lot going on at the same time."
 
The off-field grind embodies the type of player Roth is on the field. His hard work off the field didn't go unnoticed by his friends, like Burnette who said he'd go entire days without seeing Roth at their off-campus apartment. That dedication was certainly recognized by his coaches and teammates as well, resulting in his appointment as team captain as a senior.
 
"It's meant a lot being captain and knowing that the guys trust in me as a leader and it just means a lot knowing your peers believe in you," Roth said. "It's an honor. It's something I take seriously, some guys might even say I take it a little too seriously, but that's just the kind of guy I am."
 
"He expects a lot out of the guys," said Burnette, Roth's co-captain. "I would say of the two of us, he is definitely the one who is the more vocal guy. When things need to be said, he's normally the one to come out and say it and he pulls the guys together. He's pretty good at that. He's a vocal leader and he also leads by the way he plays."
 
A leader on and off the field in his four years, Roth will lead Longwood's five-player senior class into the next stage of life: life after college. Roth will graduate May 14 with a degree in kinesiology and plans on becoming an athletic trainer, but would like to take time off before joining the daily grind of the workforce. Roth leaves several legacies behind and will be remembered for many different endeavors in his time at Longwood.
 
"[Roth] was the one who headed up the Project Life initiative at Longwood," Parker said of her predecessor's involvement with the project that collects information on potential donors for bone marrow transplants. "He set the bar for us in getting people registered, and just overall he really knew how to push people to be interested in the movement as president."
 
"He's a citizen leader," Mau said of his senior captain. "He's very passionate, very dedicated, extremely hard working, and selfless. He played the game the right way, never took it for granted, and he's an overachiever and ultimate leader."
 
"He's extremely competitive, but also a really, really good guy," Burnette said. "He's extremely competitive in everything he does, and he'd also take the shirt of his back for you. If there's something you need, he's there and he'll do anything you need."
 
Roth may be remembered for many different things at Longwood to many different people, but the man himself will never forget time spent with teammates away from the field.
 
"It's cliché and everyone talks about it, but [Burnette and I] were talking about stuff off the field that we'll remember," Roth said. "There are a lot of good memories, good fun, that I'll remember. I'm going to remember the bus rides home playing 'Mafia' or watching the Final Four championship game on the bus. It's just stuff like that I'll always remember, just the fun on and off the field. It's been an unreal experience, and to be a starter at the Division I level was an honor. I have nothing but good memories."
 
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