Zachary Stewart '20 Recruiting Profile

I am a Junior at a Division 1 high school in Michigan.  I actively participate in cross country and track, but only started by chance during my seventh grade year; my mother spent 3-months out of the country and my dad insisted that I follow my older brother’s schedule which included cross-country.  All were surprised at my immediate success.  I went on during junior high to be one of the top cross country runners in the state and broke our school’s two-mile track record in 8^th grade, which had stood since 1995.  I’ve since gone on to break our freshman cross country record (as the #1 runner on the varsity team at our school) and was the #2 freshman runner in the state; I’ve continued to bring down my PRs in the 1- and 2-mile races now in track.  All by chance as I helped my dad juggle our schedules!  As a sophomore, I am on track to compete at States, with a PR of 15:42.4 at our last invite. 

I’ve been blessed to have two great coaches who’ve helped develop me as a runner, encouraged and motivated me to meet my potential, and set in-season and multi-year targets for my growth.  It is important for me to find a collegiate program which is led by similar coaches which believe in personal relationships as a core input to reach desired outputs.  At the same time, I desire a program which is competitive (both recently and historically) so that I can continue to be pushed to be all that I can be and in doing so, contributing to a top notch program.  

I have juggled several sports simultaneously (outside of running) and in parallel maintained an all ‘A’ and ‘B’ grade average (my freshman transcript will be posted at the end of this academic year).  I am interested in a university which offers a respectable focus on environmental sciences academically, but also gives the feel of a small community of learners