Raquel Chavez-Velazquez '19 Recruiting Profile

      There are many girls that enter their high school careers with experiences with training and running as a whole. For me that wasn't the case. I loved to run on the field in middle school during PE and race people, I knew running was something I really wanted to do with my life in the future but when I started high school I was lost, I didn't know where to start. Luckily for me my PE teacher, my freshman year, was the girls Cross Country coach and she recruited me straight off of PE. I was the outsider of the team but that didn't make me work any less, I put my dedication into my new passion and I was the only girl from my team to go to state as a freshman. This experience opened my path to a gateway of opportunities. Running is something I can turn to for relief and comfort, not only that I aspire to be someone that young athletes look up to in the future. I want to be someone who influences people on and off the course/track.  

     One of my life goals is to further my education and become a criminologist, along with that I want to run in college. That goal isn't complete without both key pieces being apart of its success, running in college is something I'm determined to do. If running has taught me something it's to grab what is yours because no one will grab it for you, in other words, run towards your dreams because no one is going to push you through along the way more than yourself. My Coach on the daily reminds me to bring out my diligence academically and athletically, which is something I do everyday. I always work on improving something because working smarter is way better than working harder. Being apart of a collegiate Cross Country/Track team is something I want more than anything else in this world. It's something I think about everyday because as the days go by the closer the possibility my dream is to becoming a reality and I would be so honored to represent any university that would love to consider me as a candidate for their team.