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Coming to Boston University out of high school,
I was a highly recruited track and field athlete
and I was very excited to come here
and continue some of the success
that I had as a high school athlete
and competing at this Division 1 level.
Coming here in the fall, it was very challenging.
I was doing more running than I ever had before.
Our first big meet is the Terrier Invitational that we hold annually.
We have schools come in from all over
and even professional athletes from all over.
So I was excited to run and I jumped into the 60 meter dash,
which was my first race as a collegiate.
40 meters into the race I strained my hamstring really bad.
I wouldn't really call it a pull, but it was a very severe strain.
Went home for the summer, came back as a sophomore, did a lot of rehab,
ready to jump right back on the track.
Unfortunately I was injured a couple more times on the right hamstring,
so that was the other side.
So that was kind of it for the year.
I would still continue to go to practice.
I'd bring my books to practice--
since I couldn't run, I'd study and just be there with my team.
But watching them compete was
very difficult for me and it kind of brought me down a lot.
Going to bed at night and thinking, will my leg ever be better?
There were times where I literally told my coach that I didn't think I'd run again,
that's how bad it was for me.
Dealing with those injuries and some of the setbacks my first couple of years here, athletically,
it did allow me to reach out a little bit more on campus.
On the academic side I was able to spend a lot more time in the books and I made the
Dean's List for the first time, so that was very exciting.
I got a lot more involved in things on campus like BU Economics club,
100 Black Men at BU,
the College for Every Student program, getting involved in volunteer activities like the
breast cancer walk.
As an athlete you miss out on some of those things,
so I felt like I was able to have kind of a full experience
and do some of things that my teammates maybe weren't able to do.
But I continued to grind, continued to work hard off the track, in the weight room, in
the training room,
getting proper treatment, icing every night
and doing things that I needed to do because at the end of the day
I knew I still wanted to achieve those goals and make the most out of my track and field
experience here at BU.
Over the past year or so it's been very exciting as a student athlete here at Boston University.
I've won various conference championships and broken a lot of school and conference
records
and won the E. Ray Speare award as Boston University's top male scholar athlete.
Finally ran faster than I ran in high school, so that was good for me too.
I felt like I was finally making progress.
To be able to achieve those things after having all of those setbacks means a lot to me
and it's things that I can carry on as a person in general for the rest of my life.
Just learning how to accept failure and to learn from it.