The Jump

In high school I played a bunch of different sports. Of the sports that I played, high jumping on the track team was the thing that I was most skilled at. I ran cross country and played basketball, but I was never a stand out athlete in those sports. I would have never drawn the attention of college recruiters in those sports, but in track I had a chance.

My freshman year I jumped 5'10", which is pretty good for a freshman. I really enjoyed running track in high school. I did it mostly for fun and because I was good at it, but I never would have thought that it would have changed my life.

I was a junior and I had a teammate high jumper that was a year younger than me, but jumping at the same level as I was. That year we pushed each other to new heights, hehe. We started the season both jumping around 5'8"-5'10" consistently. The question was always, who was going to break the 6'0" barrier first? I ended up being the first person over the bar, but I was upstaged a week later when my teammate jumped 6'2". I never again cleared 6'0". Only once have I been over that bar, but it was enough to get me recruited by the Hope College.

Both of my parents and my sister went to MSU and are die hard Spartan fans. I grew up a fan and always thought that I would end up a Spartan. When it came time to apply to colleges, I only applied to two schools: MSU and Hope College. I visited Hope and fell in love with the campus and the community. I was excited to go to Hope and be a college athlete.

I had a disappointing senior track season and that ended up discouraging me from joining the track & field team at Hope. When I arrived at Hope I was on my own and my faith was tested. I'm confident that I would have never been able to be the person that I am today if I would have gone to MSU. God used my athletic skills to bring me to hope, but I never ended up using that skill at the college level. I like to think that God sent his angels to lift me up over that bar my junior year so that he could place me in the school that I was supposed to be in.

It was a home meet, and I had already had two failed attempts. I ran the hook shaped pattern and jumped as high as I could, just as I had done a thousand times before. But it was that split second in time, where I was able to get that extra inch, that changed my life forever. It was the jump that changed my life.