The past couple of weeks had been a complete blur. Every night college recruiters were calling, he was getting letters in the mail, and next week a recruiter from the University of Kansas was coming by to talk with him. JC was the two time State Champion in the 400 meters. He was one of the best in the country. Last year, although he didn’t break the national record, he had the fastest time in the country for high schoolers.
Right now they were right in the middle of track season, and the pressure was on. Everyone was gunning for him. They would like nothing better than to beat the two-time defending state champ. There was a big meet coming up next week, with his arch rival, Kenny Mack. Nobody ever came anywhere near to beating JC, except for Kenny. They had some real competitive races, and some people were just waiting for the moment when Kenny might actually beat JC.
Actually, JC and Kenny had gotten to be pretty good friends off the track. They talked about their training, and what schools were recruiting them. They both thought it would be nice if they ended up at the same college. Training against each other every day would make both of them that much better.
J.C. was near the end of his senior year of high school. He was looking forward to graduation. He worked hard to keep his grades up. Mr. Wesler, his guidance councilor, had told him, that with his grades, he could get into almost any college in the country. He wanted to major in Engineering. He was taking advanced placement classes right now, and they were pretty challenging, but they counted as college credit, so that was good.
With everything going on, sometimes things felt a little bit overwhelming; trying to keep his grades up, dealing with recruiters, trying to improve on the track, plus he had a little part-time job. Sometimes it felt like it was a bit much. He had been pretty stressed for the past couple of weeks. His mom kept telling him that he needs to slow down, but he didn’t see how he could do that. Plus, you never tell a someone who runs track to slow down.
Today had been a particularly trying day, physically, and mentally. Classes were good, but the advanced placement stuff was tough. His councilor had called him in to talk about colleges. He was going to get a track scholarship, and hopefully it would pay for all of his college, but he also needed to keep in mind other types of financial aid, plus he needed to start narrowing down his choice of schools. Track practice today was brutal, but good. He was really going to be ready to face Kenny in their meet next week.
After practice, he had to work a couple of hours at his part-time job. It was Friday, so no way was he going to study this evening. He was tired. Right now school, track, college, recruiters, and everything else could wait. He would think about all of that stuff again tomorrow. Right now he was going to do something he loved doing, and had been doing since he was little. He was going sit our on the front steps, watch the sun set, and chill.