My Path to Stanford: My Recruiting Story
By Camille Peisner
Tomorrow, I move into my freshman dorm at Stanford University. Physically, my parents and I have driven 19 hours and covered 1,300+ miles to get here. But my road to Stanford started over a year ago, in a place that I least expected it.
My journey to Stanford starts in the winter of my junior year. I was in the Denver airport parking lot, coughing up my breakfast and gasping for air. I had been doing that a lot lately, and doctors couldn't figure out what would make me cough so violently that I temporarily stopped breathing. This was by far my worst episode, so bad that my dad suggested we got back in the car and go home instead of the indoor track meet we were heading to. If I couldn't breathe when I was carrying my suitcase across the parking lot, how well could I really breathe during a 400m?
I shook my head. Quitting was not an option. So I marched straight into the airport and boarded the plane that would take me to the most formative track meet of my career.
Once in Texas, my prelim race was brutal. My legs, so fatigued they were numb, practically walked across the finish line, but I still managed to grab the last qualifying spot for the finals the next day. I spoke to a couple different college coaches afterwards, warning them that I would likely not run the finals since my body didn't seem to be ready for such exertion. The coaches encouraged me to run the finals, to at least take advantage of another race opportunity. I reluctantly agreed. After all, I had come all that way. I might as well use it as training.
Looking back, these decisions--to march forward instead of turning back and to run the finals--were the two most important moments of my entire recruiting process. I had no idea what would come of my desire to compete that day until months later, on a phone call with Coach Cooper at Stanford. He had been trying to get in contact with me since he watched my finals race at the Texas A&M High School Indoor Classic. My race that day wasn't close to perfect. I didn't even win. But Coach Cooper saw something in my heart and my stride that compelled him to recruit me.
Or maybe he just thought my race face was entertaining, hehe!
I was so close to missing the opportunity of a lifetime. If I got back in the car that day, or if I didn't talk to those other coaches, I might be attending a completely different school in a completely different state. As I reflect on that, I can only believe that God was working in those decisions. Long before I even knew that Coach Cooper was watching me, God was making sure that our paths crossed. He was making sure that my weird cough and choking spouts (that went away shortly after) didn't keep me in Colorado that weekend. He was making sure that the other college coaches would persuade me from flying back early. He was making sure that my rubbery legs weren't going to leave an empty lane in the finals. There was certainly a plan unfolding that I was completely unaware of. And that plan was and is so much greater than anything I envisioned for my recruiting process.
Four years ago, I had no idea that I was capable of getting recruited to a Power 5 school, and I certainly didn't think that I would be admitted to the most selective school in the nation. In fact, I distinctly remember sitting in my freshman history class, rolling my eyes when a kid said they wanted to go to Stanford. I pessimistically told them that "Nobody in this class is getting into Stanford." I was wrong. And that's not because of my doing, but because of God's sovereignty (and ironic sense of humor).
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