Radun is majoring in Aviation Management & Flight
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Being a scholar-athlete at Florida Tech takes an incredible amount of hard work and dedication to excel both in the classroom and on the field. Panther men’s lacrosse player JR Radun, a junior who is majoring in Aviation Management & Flight, joins us for a new edition of Scholar-Athlete Spotlight. Hailing from Haymarket, Virginia, JR appeared in 13 games in 2023, recording 19 ground balls and seven caused turnovers.
Through three games this season, he’s tallied five ground balls and caused two turnovers.
Radun has been named to the Sunshine State Conference Commissioner’s and Florida Tech Athletic Director’s Honor Roll after each of his first two seasons.
With the Panthers’ season just underway, JR joined us to talk about how he keeps everything balanced and how Florida Tech is preparing him for a life in the sky.
■ Tell us a little bit about your major here at Florida Tech, what made you choose it?
My major is Aviation Management with Flight. Growing up, my family traveled a lot, my father’s from Croatia, and he and the rest of my family would travel over there every summer, and just flying on the big airplanes overseas.
From a young age, I found that interesting, and then once I was in high school, I sat down with my parents, and we started looking at potential majors to look at, and flight was one of them. Then we started looking at it and there’s a set career path with flight.
■ What do you want to do with that major once you’ve graduated?
Once I graduate, I plan to be a flight instructor and then once I build up my hours, up to 1000 hours, I plan on transitioning over to the airlines.
■ What was it about Florida Tech that made you want to be here?
Florida Tech has multiple partnerships with great airlines, such as United, American, and Delta. Having those partnerships define the career path for me, I felt like Florida Tech was the best place for me to land a job out of college.
■ What’s something from your classes that you didn’t know about your major before?
So going through the coursework for my major, seeing how airports are designed and how their planned is something that I really found interesting.
■ Is there a teammate or fellow athlete who you’ve become study buddies with?
Yeah, I have a couple of teammates that are in the same major as me. I have one that’s older than me and a few that are younger than me. It’s a cool dynamic what we have; with my older teammate, if I have a question, I’ll ask him for advice and the younger teammates will ask me for advice. So, it’s a nice dynamic.
■ What are some things you need to get the most out of study time? Do you have a playlist or need to be by yourself in a room?
For me, I just sit in my bedroom, and I turn on a sports podcast or something like that.
■ How has being a collegiate athlete prepared you for what you’re doing now and what do you take from the field that you apply to your studies?
Yes, definitely. The work ethic aspect of being a pilot is not easy and it’s very similar to sports in a sense, where you always have to be working on yourself, whether it’s in the air or on the ground, and with lacrosse that’s on the field or in the film room.
■ What advice would you give to an athlete coming to Florida Tech that has an interest in Aviation Management and Flight?
It’s going to be time consuming, but it’s definitely worth it. You have to schedule yourself properly, but it’s definitely doable, and it’s worth it in the end.
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