Daniel Khalili-Borna '21 Recruiting Profile

I've come a long way from that little kid who didn't know what paper he brought home from school one day, with an unfamiliar sport written on it. That one paper changed my life forever. It was a permission slip to join our school's Track & Field team. Fast forward to 13 seasons of Track & Field experience and almost 9 seasons of Cross Country and I'm now one of our top varsity runners who make up both of those teams' cores. Like many, I'm a team player, but I take that to the next level. I set my own interest and doubts aside and run absolutely anything my coach wants me to in Track no matter what, from the 100m to 3200m, and even the 300m Hurdles, and he can always trust that I'll put my best foot forward. Aside from being a versatile and coachable veteran athlete, I'm also a silent leader. I'll often take a lead role during practice drills or workouts and others will follow my actions even though I'm not a captain. It's not uncommon to see me encouraging others during these workouts either.

The qualities I bring to the field -  respect, trust, honesty, and integrity -  are all things I learned off the field. These are  greatly stressed in my household and I take them everywhere I go. Speaking of household life, I am the eldest of four and often do things with and for my younger siblings. I'm an animal lover and the little ones get ecstatic when I catch lizards, so I'll sometimes go outside and surprise them with a new "tie" when I come back in and I'll help them appropriately handle the animal.

My academic adventure took me on a path consisting of 2 AP classes my sophomore year, 6 my junior year and now the equivalent of 7 as a senior. I'm not a straight A student, but I've done well in these classes nonetheless, my proudest of which being my two "A"s in AP Calculus AB and my current A in AP Calculus BC. I would love to continue running Cross Country and Track & Field in college while pursuing a mechanical engineering career. It has intrigued me for a while now and I honestly treat it like sports - you have to practice and keep your brain sharp, be a team player for group projects, work hard toward a goal, and make decisions that can sometimes be difficult.

I'll bring what I've learned to any team because at the end of the day when I move on from high school to college and even life beyond, I'll be hanging up my letterman, not my character.