Zachary Wright '21 Recruiting Profile

    I tried a variety of sports when I was younger and was always the fastest kid on the team. I joined cross country and track in 7th grade. I loved the competitiveness that the two sports brought physically and mentally.  After 7th grade, I ran a local 5k race and took first, beating several high school XC runners.  The feeling was amazing! I left middle school having set 3 school records in track and won the Lansing area championship in the 800m ( 2nd place in the 1600m). As a freshman I made it onto our school's "Top 7" cross country record board  and our team placed 2nd at the Division 4 State finals.  In track, my 1600m PR placed me as one of the fastest 9th graders in the state.  That year, I had several teammates who pushed me every day in practice.

     My sophomore year, we lost a lot of senior talent and I was challenged mentally because I often found myself running alone in cross country.  Coming from a small school,  the availability of talent is limited.  My sophomore track season was very successful. I was the CMAC conference and regional champion in the 800m. I also anchored our 4x800 team who won both conference and regional championship which led our relay to placing 4th at the state finals. The 1600m was my bread and butter. At the beginning of the season, one of my goals was to win the 1600m at states. I saw myself running faster times each race. This made me hungrier for a state title. I went on to win the 1600m in my regional, which led me to reaching my goal of becoming state champion in Division 4. The feeling I had when I crossed that finish line was like nothing I have ever experienced before. I am currently in my junior year and my school has been moved up to Division 3. This brought a tougher field of competitors, helping me to achieve my goal of breaking 16 minutes. This moved me up to 2nd on our record board, 2 seconds shy of 1st place. I was the only runner on my team who qualified to run at state finals and unfortunately, didn't perform as well as I had hoped. I was not as mentally prepared as well as I should have been, but this is something I continue to work on. I did still earn all-state honors for my 3rd year in a row after placing 19th for Division 3.  Now that cross season is over, I am now training for indoor track and look forward to competing.

    I am a hard worker, extremely competitive and driven to win. I am thankful for my family who has always been very supportive of me. I hope to find a college reasonably close to home, that has a competitive running program where I can continue my academic and athletic career. I plan to pursue a career in the sports medicine field and I am excited about my future!