Sweat beading on a bald head as his veins pop and abs shake, Senior Milo Harris holds a four and a half minute plank after previously performing 44 cadence pushups. He will immediately follow this up with a 1.5 mile run, which he completed with a time of 9:55, all in an attempt to qualify to apply for the Coast Guard Academy. 

Even after he applies, he will not receive an appointment until December. On Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, at 7:00 a.m., Harris was up and ready to take his physical fitness examination at the school’s track.

“I’m pretty confident,” Harris said. “I’ve been doing a lot of training beforehand, such as arm and core exercises and running high intensity intervals and long endurance runs. I think that was the hardest part of training. I just didn’t expect how hard running would be without very much experience. It took some hard days, and some days where I had to give up, but I knew I was still further along than when I started. It was really a mental game of knowing that even when I failed, I was still getting further.”

Harris is trying to get into the Coast Guard Academy to do naval architecture and marine engineering.

“I’ve been really interested in the ocean and just ships in general ever since I first saw ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’,” Harris said. “And naval architecture and marine engineering is the major where I would be designing and engineering those kinds of ships.”

Harris will become one of his many family members to join the military. His father was in the army, his grandfather was in the Air Force and his uncle is in the army right now.

“I chose the Coast Guard specifically because the Coast Guard are on duty 24/7, saving people’s lives, facilitating trade, doing search and rescue and even breaking ice in the Great Lakes just to get trade through,” Harris said. “They’re monitoring 2000 ships a day. In a week, they’re confiscating literal tons of drugs, so they’re doing really useful things all the time which is what interested me in joining them.”

Harris has plans to stay in the coast guard for at least 20 years. 

“I think I’m going to shoot for that because I’ll still be below 40 by the time I reach 20 years,” Harris said. “From there, it depends on whether I want to stay. Or I could find a job doing something else and still maintain my other benefits.”

Amber Harris, his mother, came out to support Harris while he took his test. 

“I feel very proud of him,” Amber Harris said. “Once he sets his mind to something, then that’s pretty much what he does. I’ve been reminding him to drink water, eat and stay healthy. I provide him with a workout area at home and moral support, reminding him that he can do great, but he doesn’t have to overwork himself. You need to have that mental and physical balance.” 

Assistant Wrestling and Assistant Golf Coach, Robert Barney, proctored Harris’s test. 

“I think he did really well,” Barney said. “I’ve known Milo for three years now, and he’s been working really hard over the past year to build his muscle and endurance. He’s done a great job, so I’m really proud of him, especially since he wasn’t necessarily super strong a couple of years ago. These are really good numbers that he just put up.”

Barney has proctored other student’s tests in the past as well, including Nathan Rechtfertig when he was applying for the Marine Corps last year.

“I guess they have pretty free choice as to who they want to time them because Nathan was a wrestler and Milo was a wrestler too,” Barney said. “Being a wrestling coach, we go through a lot of really difficult things with them, so I think it helps to have that kind of bond where they’re able to be comfortable and feel like there’s a lot of encouragement there as well.”