Chandler Crumblish '13 Recruiting Profile

When I was seven years old, I contracted the West Nile Virus. It took over a week to diagnose because at the time there were only three other cases in the US. I was in a coma for fourteen days, and during that time I also developed appendicitis and had an appendectomy. My parents were told that I probably would not survive, and if I did, I would likely have severe brain damage due to the meningitis and encephalitis that had caused my brain to swell. But I did survive! After waking from the coma, I was in intensive care for six weeks and then was moved to a rehabilitation hospital where I spent the next three months. I could not walk, talk, sit up, or eat. I was fed through a feeding tube until I regained my strength and was able to participate in physical and occupational therapy. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, but I knew I had to fight to get back to how I was before the illness. My mom moved into in the hospital with me and never left for the first six weeks. My parents noticed that I responded most to live animals, so my dad visited every day after getting my older brothers (then 8 and 9) off to school, and brought the family dog to visit with me in the yard outside the hospital. Slowly I battled my way back. After being released from the rehabilitation hospital, I continued physical and occupational therapy for one year on an outpatient basis. Although I have no visible physical challenges, some neurological effects of the encephalitis were permanent, and it became apparent when I returned to school that I had learning differences. I had new difficulties with reading, solving multistep problems, and difficulty concentrating in environments with multiple distractions. My parents paid thousands of dollars for extensive diagnostic testing, and I was eventually diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD and short term memory loss. From ages 8 to 10, school was very frustrating for me. The teachers treated me differently, and the kids treated me poorly. I learned what it’s like to feel like an outcast, and as a result, today, I have a special heart for others who may not be gifted, but who give 100% in all that they do. I think this compassion has made me a better leader at school, and on the teams I’ve been a part of. I also think it helped me to be elected student body president and homecoming queen a few years later in middle school. After nearly three frustrating years in both public and small Christian schools, my parents enrolled me in the June Shelton School Dallas, TX, for children with learning differences, and it made all the difference in the world for me. At Shelton I learned the coping skills needed to succeed in high school and college, and have been an A-student since I started there in 6th grade. I also learned how to be my own self advocate so that I can explain to my teachers how my challenges require me to learn things differently, and to let them know that I have to work much harder than other kids who get the same grades. Because of my serious illness, much of my academic memory from my first 3 years of school had been erased. I had to fight my way through school and had to basically relearn everything. Nothing came easy to me but it is through this struggle that I discovered an inner strength that I never knew existed. I knew that if I worked hard enough and put the time and dedication into my education that I could be successful even though I did not learn the way most students did. After five years at Shelton, I transitioned to Bishop Lynch Catholic High School and was very successful there. After one semester I transferred to Nolan Catholic High School because my father transferred jobs and we moved to Fort Worth, TX. Another wonderful thing that happened as a result of my illness was that I discovered I could excel in track. My parents quickly realized that due to my processing problems, I could no longer play effectively in dynamic sports like ice hockey and soccer, where the action changes all the time, and players have to anticipate where the play is going. In hockey, I could outskate all the boys on my team, but I was always skating to where the puck had just been, instead of where it was going! My dad had run track in college, and insisted that I try it. He joked with me and said, “It’s simple: just run and cross the line first. We’ll just put an ‘X’ on your left hand, so you know which way to turn.” I had just turned 10, and during that first summer, I ran a 5:57 1600m and won my age group race in the Games of Texas. I was hooked! Since then, I have won several more times at the Games of Texas, have run in the Hershey AAU Nationals, and have won 6 Texas State TAPPS titles in Cross Country and Track, despite a nasty venomous spider bite on my foot which took me out of training and competition for all of 2011 (Spring Sophomore year and Fall of Junior Year). I fully recovered by early 2012 and won 5A state in 1600m (5:16) and 3200m (11:36) as a member of Nolan Catholic which scored just enough points for my team to win the State Team title over the Bishop Lynch HS team I had just left the previous semester. It was really fun giving my former coach a hard time about beating him. The point I would like to make through this story is that I am a fighter. I do not give up; I am a self-advocate and l do whatever it takes to get the job done. I work harder than everyone at everything I do, whether it’s in school or sports, and I take nothing for granted. I look at any struggle as a challenge to overcome, and do not back down. I learned at a very young age that every day is a gift.