Cooper Tirado '18 Recruiting Profile

Never would I have thought about pursuing track and field at the collegiate level. Coming from playing football all year round. Football this football that, to training on a dirt track every day. After my freshman football season ended, my coach recommended track. I was very skeptical because it’s running, like who wants to run for fun? I thought. Well, now it’s me trying to spread the word about how fun track is, and I get that same answer “who wants to run for fun?”. The coaches noticed me right away. Our school has a lot of talent but these people lack the drive and motivation, that’s what they noticed in me. I wasn’t just another football guy out there lacking effort. They saw potential in me.

Sophomore year was great. Great football season, tried soccer out for a change and was maintaining a 4.0 GPA throughout that whole year. Then came track. I was excited this year because I knew what was to come and I began to understand how much potential I had. Then came an injury, a hip strain that put me out for 4-5 weeks. Well, there’s my chance to create a comeback story I thought. That’s exactly what happened. My football career was over, it was track time. Many were opposed to my decision to stop playing football, but I knew what I wanted. While maintaining a 3.75-4.0 GPA and taking AP statistics I pushed myself to run cross country. Honestly, it was brutal but that is the effort I needed to put in in order to achieve my goals. I Placed 16th in the OIA western division championship and made it to states. This change drastically impacted my track performance. Overall, from freshman to senior year  I dropped 13 seconds in the 400m, three seconds in the 200m, and two seconds in the 100m. Our goal that season was to place in states for our 4x400m relay, and we placed third. I knew what I wanted and I knew the amount of work I had to put in to achieve those goals. Now is my chance to create a story in my next chapter of life, to further my education, to bring effort on the track and in the class. Now is my time.