‘Be where your feet are at’: Boise State athletes balance new babies, tough competition

‘Be where your feet are at’: Boise State athletes balance new babies, tough competition

It’s not uncommon to hear that being a parent is time-consuming. Late-night feedings and changes, 24/7 attention and lack of sleep, and finding it hard to find time to do anything for yourself.

The same thing can be said about being a student-athlete. Practices, lifts, travel, games, in addition to studying, classes, and tests.

With the fall sports season underway, we heard from two Broncos who are learning to balance stadiums, swaddles, and school.

Roger Carreon

For the last four years, Boise State offensive tackle Roger Carreon has been a growing force for the Broncos.

The now fifth-year senior captain from Ja, New Mexico, made his debut in 2022. Since then, he’s played in 35 games and collected numerous accolades, including a three-time All-Mountain West Academic and several preseason watch lists for 2026.

Since the end of last season, he’s added a new title: dad.

In the fall of 2025, just a few days before Boise State’s game against Air Force, Carreon said he found out his fiancée was pregnant.

“We were just extremely excited,” he said, referring to himself and his fiancée, Jaidyn.

Carreon said that when he told his coaches, they were very supportive.

“(They were) just awesome about the advice they were giving me, and just constant like, ‘Hey, how are you? How’s she doing? How’s the baby?’ And very accommodating with all those things,” Carreon said.

In early May, Carreon and Jaidyn welcomed Kolton into the world. He affectionately refers to him as “little man.”

He said they had about three weeks together as a family before he had to report for the summer. After a rough start, Carreon said they got into a rhythm.

“(It was) really awesome to be able to be home with Jade and little man,” he said. “Just enough time to kind of get it somewhat figured out.”

His summer schedule was from about 5 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“This is work for me, right? So when I’m (at football), I’m working, and when I get home, I leave it at the door and spend time with (Jade) and making the emphasis of… being a father and being there for her as well.”

Fall camp, he said, has been a different experience.

“Fall camp’s definitely been a lot, a lot tougher,” he said, adding his schedule includes getting up at 5 a.m. and not getting home until about 9:30 p.m.

“I get home, and I love on (Jade), and I love on little man for 30-45 minutes, and then I have to get in bed and go to sleep. So it’s been hard.”

One thing they’ve been able to work in is visits to practice.

“Right after our practice, we have lunch, and we have like a two- to three-hour span, and so she’ll come down here every other day with little man, and have lunch, and be around my teammates, the coaches,” Carreon said. “I get to see her and Kolton, and my teammates also get to interact with my family.”

Carreon says seeing the interaction between his teammates, coaches, and his family fills his heart.

“We talk about it here all the time: we’re not just teammates. Those guys are my family. They’re my brothers. And just seeing how much love they have for my family… I’m just so grateful to have people like that in my life.”

One of the ways Carreon said he sees it is through their actions.

“I see them making the effort and asking my fiancée how she’s doing, does she need help with anything? Can I take your plate? You know, just little things like that, and it’s everybody. She feels so welcomed and so loved.”

The team also can’t get enough of Kolton.

“They’ll sit there and beg you every day. ‘Hey, is Kolton coming down today?’ I’m like, ‘No, not today, maybe tomorrow,’” he said. “I get that question every single day.”

Carreon said he talked to his coaches about becoming a father, and they all gave different advice. But he said one of the biggest takeaways was to be intentional with time and to “be where your feet are at.”

“When I’m in the facility, I’m a football player, and I have an obligation to this team, and this is my job, and that’s my number one priority when I’m here,” Carreon said. “And then when I’m home, just leaving it at the door, whether you had a great day, bad day, whatever it may have looked like, and doing your best to show your significant other that you love them and you appreciate them.”

Carreon told BoiseDev Jaidyn has been a rockstar through it all.

“Without her, none of this would be possible,” he said. “She’s the best mom and the best fiancée I could ever ask for. She’s the foundation for our family, and so I’m just very grateful for her and what she does for our family.”

Carreon said it comes back to open communication and understanding that they’re on the same team.

“She’s having a hard day, or she needs a little extra help, or you know, if I come home and it’s been a rough day and I need a little extra, you know, it’s just bouncing off of each other, because that’s just the reality of it: there’s days where we’re gonna have harder days than others, and so it’s just being there for one another and then communicating,” Carreon said.

As for this season, Carreon said he hopes Kolton will be at every game. And when he’s cheering on his dad, he’ll be in a custom-made Bronco jersey.

“Before he was born, (Boise State equipment manager) Dale (Holsey) brought me a custom jersey that his wife had made by hand, and it was my jersey for my son,” he said. “It almost brought me to tears. It was just such a thoughtful gift.”

Landon Helms

For cross country and track senior Landon Helms, he’s held the title of ‘dad’ for more than 16 months.

The Emmett High School grad and his wife, Amber, welcomed their daughter in May of 2025, just one week after the Mountain West Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

He said he felt like they were prepared because his wife has been working in the NICU for three years and is entering her final year of nursing school at Boise State.

“So her having that experience just with little babies in general, it’s not like we’re both starting from ground zero and trying to figure everything out, it was very much so, like, my wife understood how to take care of little babies, if anything were to happen… we we felt a little bit more prepared than probably most people going into this kind of situation,” Helms said.

After the birth, Helms took a few weeks off before heading to Eugene to compete in the NCAA outdoor nationals. His daughter, wife, and mother-in-law were all able to come and watch him place ninth in the men’s decathlon.

While he was competing, Helms said he was bouncing back and forth between being “Athlete Landon” and “Dad Landon.”

“First and foremost, my main concern was, are they doing okay? Do they need my help with anything? Like, do you feel totally supported?” he said. “Thankfully, her mom was able to come and really help out in that regard”

After that, Helms said he was able to switch over to his athlete mindset.

“I didn’t necessarily feel any stress going into it because I’ve kind of matured and developed into this mentality of if I just have the mindset that I’m just going to go have fun doing something that I love, I typically perform my best, and so that kind of allowed me to take stress off of the athlete side, to essentially be able to do both at once,” he said.

Since then, he’s set up a schedule to work around being a dad, a husband, an athlete, and a student.

“She doesn’t wake up until about 7 a.m. right now, and so it’s like, okay, I’m going to do my lifts at 6 a.m., and so I’m going to get up at like 5:30 so that I’m not taking any time away from family time,” he said. “I will continue to carve out blocks out of there to take care of other stuff that I need to, so that family time is not impacted.”

Helms told BoiseDev all of his coaches have been understanding and have worked with him to make it all work, including helping him take care of his body to be able to perform at its best.

“We’re going to take care of you holistically first, because if you’re not in a good space yourself, then how can we ask you to perform… at your best?” Helms said of his track coaches.

Now that his daughter is a little older, he said his wife has been able to bring her to some practices.

“Whether she’s watching me running or watching me pole vault, like honestly, I wish they could be there for every single practice because… it’s so awesome watching her grow and develop, and especially like where now she’s able to like be a lot more mobile and be a lot more active. Just see how much she retains and how much she’s able to like mimic our behaviors and wants to do the things that we do,” he said.

Like Carreon, Helms gives his wife much of the credit.

“My wife is amazing,” he said. “My wife does so much stuff that I could never do. Like, if you think that like what I do is hard, like, my wife is so much more capable. Like times 10.”

He also said that spending dedicated family time helps quiet the other noise. He also credits the life experiences that he said God has put him through to prepare for fatherhood.

“I guess you could say that he’s helped broaden my shoulders so that I can carry the load of this responsibility to where it doesn’t feel that heavy,” he said.

The couple is expecting baby number two any day.

“I feel like two of the biggest misconceptions are that you have to wait for the perfect timing for everything in your life, and the other one is that expanding your responsibilities limits you,” he said. “I feel like expanding my responsibilities in the aspect of becoming a dad has brought me so much joy and like further purpose than like I could ever ask for.”