Tricia Rotering was a dominant force in the shot put event for the UW Oshkosh women’s track and field teams from 1991-1994.
“I did have a speech prepared, but on the three-hour drive over here, all the memories just came sledding back in,” Rotering said.
In Rotering’s time on the track and field team, the Titans won two NCAA Division III titles and were crowned champions of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) five times.
Not only did the team suffer from success, Rotering became a national champion in the shot put event at the 1994 NCAA Indoor Championship, thrusting the team to their second national team title of her career.
She’d also be named the Outstanding Field Performer at WIAC championships twice, the first coming at the 1993 WIAC Indoor Championship and the second being in the 1994 WIAC Outdoor Championship.
Other than in the 1994 outdoor season, Rotering earned each of her All-America honors in the shot put event, until she claimed fifth in the hammer throw event, concluding her career with two All-American performances in the hammer throw and shot put.
Rotering credits her coach, Deb Vercauteren, for leading her to Oshkosh by giving a pitch like there was no tomorrow.
“She told me the Oshkosh track and field team was not your typical team, it was special,” Rotering said. “And she wasn’t wrong, it was a family.”
Rotering remembers the exact moment in her freshman year when she realized she had made the right decision to come to UWO.
“In between prelims and the finals, I look over and I see Deb hanging on to the chain link fence just cheering me away,” Rotering said. “I knew right then I had made a great decision, and I’ve never regretted that decision.”
During the 1993 season, she recalls a time when the team was in Maine for a national invite, but there was a serious snowstorm.
“When everyone was hunkering into the hotels or their houses, our track and field team was outside in the snow,” she said. “Snow banks were taller than I was, and we were sitting there having snowball fights and making snow angels. That was just some of the camaraderie that our team had. It made the accomplishments even greater.”
After wrapping up her career with the Titans, Rotering would eventually be selected to the WIAC Women’s Track and Field All-Centennial Team in 2012 to honor her great career through the early 90s.
