Patrick Kippes: my unexpected source of inspiration by John

Patrick Kippes: my unexpected source of inspiration by John - November 2022 Scholarship Essay

For a few years now, I’ve been doing my Saturday runs with Patrick Kippes, a father of a couple of runners on my school’s cross country and track and field teams. As a hard-core distance runner, running is a huge part of my life, so my Saturday mornings are always reserved for long runs, often around 12 miles. Before this year, I’ve used these runs to connect a little with teammates, talk about our racing and training with him, and share what we know about other teams and upcoming races. However, once I became a senior, I finally began to take advantage of his ability to talk about his past experiences and give advice about life. Some of what he has shared with me has truly inspired me in all aspects of my life during my senior year of high school.
First, there is the obvious: being a very serious runner since his high school days, he has lots of experience with high-level running. What I’ve learned from him that’s most inspiring, however, is not to take running for granted. Personally, I’ve taken good care of my body and been blessed with not getting injured, but he’s shown me that injuries do happen, and they can be very severe. He’s also explained to me how age does eat away at your body, and that there comes a time when you are unable to do what you used to be able to do. This has really led to me enjoying every race more and trying to put my best performances out there every time I race because such opportunities will not last forever, meaning I should enjoy them while I still have them. In addition, his stories about his time with his college teammates have inspired me to do as well as I can with my remaining time in high school so I can get to experience those same moments, as well as helping me make the correct choice for where I’m going to college.
However, the place where he’s inspired me most is where I expected it least: my academics. On one of our runs, we were talking about how different parts of the country take different standardized tests for college. Since we live in California, almost everyone takes the SAT, but where he grew up in Kansas, they almost exclusively took the ACT. Of course, the logical follow-up question was asking what score he got on the exam. Apparently he got a 35, which is only 1 point away from a perfect score. All of us there were very surprised; he had never hinted anything about being this smart. He told us he ended up getting scholarship money for that score and followed it up by saying, “Stay focused in school!” While academic motivation has never been a problem for me, seeing him as someone with a 35 ACT score made me want to do even better in all my classes because I realized that what he had done wasn’t out of reach and that sure, I might have all A’s, but I can do better. Also, since he works in the biomedical industry, I didn’t think of him as someone who would need to use advanced math like differential equations, but after I asked him, he revealed that he has used them multiple times, including one instance recently related to COVID-19. From him, I realized that almost everything I will learn in school will probably be necessary for me at some point in my life, whether that be for my job, personal relations, or maybe making a case about something.
All I suspected Patrick would be was a great person to lead long runs, give us the total distance, and show us new places. However, he has inspired me to do better in all facets of life, an unexpected benefit of spending every Saturday morning with him while on a run.