Jessica Heidel '17 Recruiting Profile

I grew up in a small town in Kansas in a class of only fifty students. Here, my track team is small and gets smaller every year but thats never stopped me from wanting to run and jump. Some of my athletic ability is just natural talent but the rest of it is my ability to work hard during practice and aspire to be something more than just a high school athlete. I want to continue to compete after my high school career is over just because jumping is something that has over time became apart of who I am. I went through high school getting a different coach from my freshman year to my sophomore year to not even having a jumping coach at all my junior year. The coaches we had my junior year for our team was a distance coach and a throwing coach. Although they tried to help me as much as they could I didn't have a coach to help me specifically with my technique and form. I have been to state and placed all three years I've got to run in high school.  Freshman year I got 4th in long jump, sophomore year I got 3rd in long jump and 7th in triple jump, and my junior year I got 2nd in long jump, 2nd the 100 meter dash and 7th in triple jump. My junior year I hit a few bumps in the road with getting hurt but never let it stop me. First I spiked myself on a triple jump leaving 6 great big tears down the inside of my right leg making it hard to compete without getting sand inside of them or tearing them open again, but I still competed. I fractured my right leg and still competed on it but had to compete at state with a fracture. When it comes to track I give my all and I don't let anything get in the way of my competition. I am very competitive and push myself to make myself do the best that I can and hopefully in the end, win. I don't only want to beat others in the competition but I also want to beat myself and better my own marks and times. In school I have developed great study and note taking techniques and I always get my work done. I love being the best at most things and so I push myself in school as hard as I can too. I take on a lot of things at once but always manage to get them done and get them done well. This includes multiple sports, being in clubs, taking college classes, and doing my regular high school classes. I aspire to go to a college best fit for me to run track and get my undergraduate degree so I can begin doing a residency for pediatrics. I work well on my track team because I like to help out my team mates and appreciate when they give me advice, but when it comes to competition, it is up to myself to do my best. So growing up in my small town has helped me learn that sometimes you have to look outside of your comfort zone to get help and better yourself, and I am ready to do just that and get out of my small town and compete somewhere that I can be put to bigger and better expectations and competition.