Micah Pratt '17 Recruiting Profile

         From the first moment I stepped on a track as a 4-year-old, to now, a highly competitive high school junior, athleticism has been a part of who I am. Looking back, I had no clue in 2011, when I first started running competitively, how much one part of my life would affect the completion of every other task or challenge I put my hand to. If I truly attempted to write how athletics has affected my life, I would find myself writing a book of toil and pain, victory and defeat. However, I must settle for a short essay this time, and save the book-writing for a future date when I have lived a few more years and learned a few more lessons.

          For the past 5 years, I have trained to become a great runner. I have paid my fair share of the blood, sweat, and tears required for any true athlete to succeed. Throughout my training, I have run thousands of miles and made every effort to make the choices necessary to become an amazing athlete. Nevertheless, all of this would mean absolutely nothing had it not affected the other parts of my life. Over the years, I have watched as my attitude toward education, work ethics, and vision and goals for the future have changed. My dedication to hard work, determination to succeed, and perseverance to continue when the going gets rough, increased. The work ethic I developed as an athlete gave me the ability to accumulate over +450 hours of volunteer work at my local hospital, and after two years of dedicated service, to start my first job as the youngest employee of the Ambassador (Inter-Hospital Transport) Services Department in that same hospital. My determination to succeed, cultivated as an athlete, produced the perfect formula for a great ongoing leadership career in the Civil Air Patrol Cadet Program (the United States Air Force Auxiliary), allowing me during my four years of service to become not only a Cadet Major, but the Cadet Deputy Commander of my local Civil Air Patrol Composite Squadron. During my constant training, I realized the importance of perseverance during any difficult task, which empowered me to not only maintain a 4.0 academically, but to be able to test for and pass College Algebra as a 14-year-old, College Pre-calculus as a 15-year-old, and College Calculus as a 16-year-old, all by my perseverance in studying and taking the College Level Examination Program Tests. My goals and visions for the future have transformed to become more challenging and demanding as I discovered the results of hard work in its fulfillment.

          Being an athlete has affected my life in every way. Though all the twists and turns and uncertainty of life, I will never forget the lessons I learned as a high school athlete, and I look forward to seeing what new challenges the future has to offer.