Zachary Denton '23 Recruiting Profile

To put it simply, I aspire to reach my maximum potential. I know that it may sound vague but that is my goal. I may have temporary goals to mark progress along the way, but my end goal is simply to reach as high as I can with my current goal being to potentially get a track and field scholarship. I have been playing sports since I was 7 and tried a variety including basketball, soccer, wrestling, football, track and field, and volleyball with last two being the sports I currently play. Though I may not be top of my class academically, sports is something that I have never held back on and I consider myself to be extremely driven when it comes to events that I feel passionate about. 

I am also very coachable and adaptable, able to readily take criticism and use it in a positive way to improve. This pairs well with what I feel is one of my strengths, which is to be able to see and admit my own flaws. Rather then then trying to cover up my flaws in technique or any other areas, I would rather let them be seen and then work to overcome and adapt to those issues.

 A good example of this would be the 2022 track season; the school I am currently at has roughly 270 students and sports teams aren't very big. As a result, we have a lack of experienced coaches for sports with most being volunteers. Out of the people that volunteered to coach the track team, none of them were able to coach my main event, (110hurdles) leaving me to be self-taught for the whole season. Despite this setback, I adapted and overcame by using all available resources such as videoing my races, online forums, and lots of YouTube videos. This, combined with my ability to acknowledge my own flaws, led to my technique improving and outdoing my previous season's PR by 0.6 seconds by the end of the current one, bringing my 110 hurdle time down from 14.99 to 14.34. I feel this perfectly showcases my previous claims, showing my ability to self-motivate and race against myself as well as the clock, not just other people.

In the end, track is a craft and the best part of practicing a craft is being able to put countless hours into something and watching yourself improve. I cannot overstate the amount of passion and drive that I have to improve and better myself in this sport and I see college as the next step that I can take to be better at my craft.