Start with running. In ninth grade I was no sportsman: too lanky for football, too short for basketball, too uncoordinated for soccer. I was the studious type. By default I ran cross-country, but I treated it as a chore and not a passion; another required class in high school. I dreaded the bitter sprints on grey evenings and the cold slap of grainy mud on my calves. I hated the smell of the locker room and the velvety feel of running shorts. And I tried most days to avoid the glare of the coach who in my freshman eyes stood as silent taskmaster, clipboard in hand, judging our progress from his perch in the gazebo on the hill high above the sports fields.
When I began working towards the Congressional Award, I used cross-country as my exercise in physical fitness. It seemed a logical choice, and I expected to accumulate my two hundred hours painfully, drearily. But gradually something changed. In seeing my hours tick steadily upwards, I found excitement, satisfaction, accomplishment. I stopped dreading practice. I grew to enjoy the crunch of dead leaves under rubber sneakers and the freshness of grass on misty race days and the taste of copper and tin – the taste of exertion – present in each athletic breath. I grew stronger.
The Congressional Award had given me both a goal and the opportunity for self-reflection. I had been running because I was required to: because school policy forced every student to play a sport. But those award hours gave me something to strive for. I began to wonder why I was working for them, and the answers I discovered changed the way I thought of the sport. I began to run because it was healthy. Because it taught self-discipline. And yes: because maybe, just maybe, it could even be fun.
Another part of my outlook changed as well, in a more important way. My coach became my validator, and in turning to him I began to see him not as an overseer but as a mentor. And he, seeing the newfound sense of passion I brought to the field, began to challenge me and help me grow. He guided me as I passed through high school, becoming not only my coach but my teacher, my advisor, my college recommendation writer.
The value of building relationships with advisors seems self-explanatory to me now, but I forget sometimes that this skill was learned, and that at one point in my life I was that silly thirteen year old, who needed a gentle push towards taking advice. For the Congressional Award, which gave me that push, I am grateful.
-Kevin Suyo
2007 Gold Medalist
