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Photo courtesy of Mallie Robinett.
Mallie Robinett in an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter. After the Academy, she hopes to earn her wings as either as a fixed-wing or helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard.
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Photos by Paul Duddy, courtesy of Mallie Robinett.
Cadet Mallie Robinett with her fellow cadets at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
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Photos by Paul Duddy, courtesy of Mallie Robinett.
Cadet Mallie Robinett with her fellow cadets at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
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Photos by Paul Duddy, courtesy of Mallie Robinett.
Cadet Mallie Robinett with her fellow cadets at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
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Photos by Paul Duddy, courtesy of Mallie Robinett.
Cadet Mallie Robinett with her fellow cadets at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
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Photos by Paul Duddy, courtesy of Mallie Robinett.
Cadet Mallie Robinett with her fellow cadets at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
The motto of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, “Scientiae Cedit Mare,” translates to “The sea yields to knowledge.”
Although the sea may yield, when it comes to pursuing her dreams, Mallie Robinett does not.
This time last year, Robinett was a senior at Mountain Brook High School, with scarcely a month before graduation with her fellow Spartans. She was a seasoned veteran of the Alabama Performance Volleyball Club’s club and beach volleyball programs, an alumnus of Leadership Mountain Brook and an outstanding student.
She was also, at that point, set on playing Division III volleyball at the Coast Guard Academy and, ultimately, being commissioned as an ensign.
“The Coast Guard encompasses the humanitarian missions — search and rescue, drug interdiction, marine life safety and others — and I know whatever mission I end up working on, I’ll be passionate about it,” Robinett said.
But entry into the Academy, with its acceptance rate of only about 15%, was far from certain – even for a student-athlete of Robinett’s caliber. Scarcely 400 students enter the academy each summer.
Therefore, even though Coast Guard volleyball coach Mark Thomas wanted Robinett playing for the Bears, it was clear her best path to the New London, Connecticut, campus would be through a program called the Coast Guard Academy Scholars program.
“CGAS functions as a year-long prep school for its participants,” Chief Petty Officer Third Class Matt Thieme said. “In this case, the students are billeted at the academy, are in uniform and live under academy discipline, but attend classes nearby in Groton at the University of Connecticut – Avery Point.”
Thieme said most participants who successfully complete the yearlong program receive an appointment to the Academy’s next class.
Undaunted by the challenge set in front of her, Robinett entered CGAS in the summer of 2023. In the blue uniform blouse and trousers the Coast Guard calls its Operational Dress Uniform, she settled into a life of military discipline that was a far cry from the dorms and sorority houses of Tuscaloosa or Auburn.
“Time is so precious that we don’t even sleep under the covers on our bunks,” Robinett said with a laugh. “If you did, you’d just have to make your bed up tight the next morning, and we don’t have time for that. So I sleep under a throw blanket I have from home.”
Robinett’s current class load includes calculus, physics, chemistry and statistics, but, according to her, Mountain Brook prepared her well.
“I have the highest GPA out of everyone on my hallway,” she said, “and so I try to help everyone as best I can. Last semester’s chemistry was very similar to 10th grade chemistry, and calculus was a lot easier for me because pre-cal at MBHS covered a lot of the first few chapters of calculus here.”
“I had a lot more homework at Mountain Brook,” she added.
Robinett’s success to date comes as little surprise to her mother, Mary.
“She puts everything into what she does,” her mother said. “She is incredibly hard-working and mature. She was that way back in high school. Keeping up her grades, playing competitive volleyball and even holding down a job at Nothing Bundt Cakes.”
“We did not see the Coast Guard Academy coming,” Mary Robinett said, “but I couldn’t be happier for her. I grew up in South
Carolina, and we have seven graduates out of The Citadel in my family, so we understand what the military is about and appreciate it.”
At the academy, a typical day in the CGAS program for Mallie Robinett involves waking up at 6 a.m. (or 4:30 a.m. if she has volleyball practice). “Then, it’s just normal college,” she said. “We go to class, go to lunch in the mess hall and then in the afternoons everyone goes to their sports practice or goes to the gym.”
“Then we eat dinner and do homework,” she said. “‘Taps’ goes off at 10 p.m. each night, but usually we stay up past then doing homework.”
These days, the focus is turning to final exams — and the hope of a long year in CGAS coming to an end.
Once final exams are completed, a well-deserved stretch of leave awaits Robinett back home in Alabama. But then, if she is indeed formally accepted into the Academy, comes “Swab Summer” beginning July 1, 2024.
The Coast Guard has described Swab Summer as “an intense seven-week basic training program designed to transform civilian students into military members ready to accept the call of safeguarding the nation’s maritime security interests.”
“But you also get to spend a week on the Eagle,” Robinett added, referring to the Academy’s three-masted sailing ship used to train cadets.
After Swab Summer, Robinett’s real journey at the Academy will begin. In addition to summer training, her time in New London will include four years of rigorous academics, focused heavily on math, science and engineering. For her part, Robinett hopes to major in naval architecture and marine engineering.
The voyage ahead for Robinett promises to be a challenging one, and, in the end, it will demand at least five years of service on active duty in the Coast Guard following her graduation. But Robinett has no complaints.
For Robinett, one possibility might be serving on board an armed fast-response cutter as one of its 24 officers and crew.
“Maybe something out of Miami would be nice,” she said.
But for now, her main ambition is to ultimately pursue flight school, either as a fixed-wing or helicopter pilot. The Coast Guard’s fleet of aircraft ranges from MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters to, coincidentally, the HC-27C Spartan, a twin-engine plane designed for medium-range surveillance, drug and migrant interdiction and search-and-rescue missions, among others.
“In the Coast Guard, you are preparing every day for what you want to do,”
Robinett said. “I think that really sets the Coast Guard apart from the other services.”
