Reilly Simon '12 Recruiting Profile

I am Reilly Simon, a junior at Grapevine High School in Texas. Track is my athletic passion, particularly the 400 and the 4X400 relay. I've enjoyed speed contests since I began competing in sports in grade school, and running became my favorite outlet. In particular, sprinting is something that I truly enjoy, and gives me a lot of personal satisfaction when I push myself to my fullest abilities. Unfortunately track is a non-credit sport at my high school so I have been taking cross country as a credit course and running with the cross country team in addition to training for track. College is a major goal of mine and I want my college experience to include athletic participation. I would enjoy continuing to run and compete at a high level, keeping in mind that scholastics will come first. At the present time, I am thinking of pursuing a degree in International Relations or Studies, looking at colleges that have diversity and superior scholastics. My current preference is a setting with fewer than 10,000 students (more or less), outside the state of Texas. We've been looking initially at schools on the east and west coasts. I am really enjoying participating on the track team in high school, and have achieved a measure of success. I would like to have a similar experience in college in terms of making friends and being part of a cohesive, competitive team. Regarding times, my personal best was in the 4X400 relay sophomore year, somewhere in the 00:58+ range. In the straight 400, my current best was 00:59+, also sophomore year. We run in 5A, the biggest school category in Texas, and last year in our districts, I was leading by 15 yards with 10 yards to go when I fell. This taught me to better prepare for this season, and that I needed to improve my training if I wanted to get to the next level, the state meet. My freshman year, I qualified for regionals in the 400, and qualified both freshman and sophomore year for regionals as part of the 4X400 team. Our cross-country team has finished in the top ten at regionals the two years I have run on the team. To take my running to the next level, I began training one-on-one with a local private track coach. We have been working on strength, technique, explosiveness and nutrition (one of my weak suits), and I believe this will lead to improved times and helping our team to a higher finish at districts, regionals, and hopefully, states. I am extremely excited about my upcoming track season and am looking forward to doing my personal best and leading our Grapevine High School track team to it's most successful year yet!