Prefontaine Scholarship Essay
“A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts.”
In Oregon, it is nearly impossible to run track without slowly growing to learn the legacy of Steve Prefontaine. He was a normal kid like most, or so I have heard from my grandmother who spent her childhood days watching her brother bring Steve over some days. Unlike other kids, he was someone blessed with a passion. With that passion he made himself into one of the best runners to make it out of Oregon and transformed the lives of many. Track has always been about going guts out, leaving everything that you have to give on the track, even if you feel like you cannot give it. It doesn’t matter if you think you have a spot on the podium, you have to work your way up from the bottom to get there. There can only be one winner, and that is the person who has put their heart and soul into what they are doing and gives nothing less than their best every day that they show up. Personally, I learned this the hard way. After breaking my foot my sophomore year I was told that I needed to give up on my dreams of college track, and high school track was off the table. This was extremely disheartening, but since I have been little I have never been one to take no for an answer. Instead of being discouraged I was defiant. The “Stop Pre” sticker I have hung up in my room stood as a reminder of his story, and that gave me strength. When the whole world is telling you to sit down and give up, the last thing that you can do is listen to them. Every day was my own personal victory lap around the track, but instead of the ‘Stop Pre’ shirt it was a black walking boot that I wore with a sense of pride. It took a lot to come back to practice every day with the same positive attitude, and it took guts to get back out on the runway once I was healed. Everyone is going through something, and every person has someone, even if it is only themselves, pushing them to get out on the other side better than they started. Prefontaine’s quote about guts speaks to athletes who are pushing themselves through hard times, and in my case, it is what led me to my first State Championship win.