Bria Armstrong '21 Recruiting Profile

Sports have played a big role in my life from playing them to watching them. One thing that sports did was it helped me with my leadership and communications skills. It also helped me learn more about my history and where I came from. Therefore, continuing the sport I love and moving onto the next level is important to me and has influenced my choice in colleges. First off, my name is Bria Armstrong, I am a Junior at Bloom High School located in Chicago Heights, IL. I have been a part of a couple different programs such as Illinois Leadership Seminar(ILS), Common Ground Foundation(CGF), and National Honors Society(NHS). My favorite quote is “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” I don’t have a specific major, but I have some majors in mind. 

              I first joined a sports team, which was gymnastics, at the age of 3. I did gymnastics for about 10 years then stopped because my love for the sport wasn’t there anymore. After I stopped gymnastics, my cousin, Imani, encouraged me to tryout for track. My conditioning and discipline from gymnastics prepared me for all the running and jumping I had to do in track. It was different, but it was nothing compared to all the work I had to do for gymnastics. I was very talented when it came to track. I do Long jump, Triple jump, and Hurdles. My first time doing TJ I made it down state; my first year doing hurdles I made it to Nationals. I made it to Indoor State Championships twice, Outdoor State twice, and AAU Nationals in three individual events, but I didn’t place at those meets, that’s when my favorite quote started to make more sense to me. I realized that even though I was talented it wasn’t enough for me to be the best. Therefore, I decided I needed to put in some extra work because “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

      One thing that is important to me other than track is leadership and communication. At my school, they have a leadership class that students are allowed to take instead of a gym that prepares students to take on different leadership positions. The class enhances and brings out the leadership qualities in every student in the class. Before the class, I already had leadership qualities and dealing with track brought that out. At practice, I am that one person that would push their teammates to do better and be that person they can look up to or go to for help.