MY CAREER AS AN ATHLETE WAS OVER… or so I thought! You see back in HS I was your typical student athlete. I trained daily, once at the track and once in the weight room. My best friend was an athlete too, a swimmer, and she had graduated the year before me with a scholarship to FIU. My dad was also a track athlete in college at UF (my now alma-mater). I was determined to do it too, but the universe had other ideas. I hurt my back midseason and even though I was able to recover and finish with a PR jump of 5ft 6in, I still wasn’t good enough for a scholarship to the only school that mattered, UF. Instead, I received D2 offers and a couple letters from out of state schools (uhm snow? no thanks). I was accepted to UF with an academic scholarship instead. But “athlete” was part of my identity for so long. What was I going to do as a freshman in college to fill that gap?! Well a girl down the hall from me (who is now my other best friend) also gave up track when she started college and o...