Tara Todd '18 Recruiting Profile

In the five years that I have been running, nothing compared to the feeling of qualifying individually for Regionals my freshman cross country season.  However, helping to make history by becoming the first girls' team to ever qualify from our school, felt even better. While that achievement felt great, my sophomore year helped shape me when our team missed out on qualifying because of a tiebreaker. We didn't go on as a team, but me and my teammate both qualified individually. I learned through this experience that during a race you decide your own fate. We both ran our own races and set out to achieve our goals, and in the end it payed off.

While I put in an immense amount of effort and passion into running, I also take my academics seriously. I currently have a 4.316 GPA and am ranked 18th out of 122 kids in my grade. I am taking college courses as well as several high school courses. I push myself to do the best I can in school and believe that doing so alongside playing sports, gives me a stronger sense of time management. On top of athletics and academics, I am involved in our community: I am a student council officer, National Honors Society member and officer, Vice President of the Creative Writing Club, help others as a writing tutor, and I am on the quiz team.

I hope to continue running in college for a school that makes me feel like I fit in. I want to be apart of a team who has, as much as me, a drive to achieve great things. I would hope to do both cross country and track while studying for a major that will allow me to go towards a career in graphic design. I think one thing that makes me stand out is my level of determination. I am a runner with Vocal Cord Dysfunction and even though it mimics asthma, it doesn't have a cure or medicine, so I run through the breathlessness. I have never let VCD stop me and I don't plan to ever let it hold me back from achieving my goals. If I were fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to run for a school, I would do everything I could to represent them well.