A Person I Look Up To

One of the people I look up to is Glenn Cunningham. Glenn Cunningham was a great athlete when it came to endurance running. He had a lot of perseverance, and in the mid-1930’s he broke the world record for the 1 mile-run. Its true there are a lot of other faster athletes than him, but the reason I look up to him is because of his story. When Glenn was a young boy, he burnt his legs really bad in an explosion, which almost burnt his legs off. The doctor’s said he was very lucky to survive, but he’d never be able to walk again. His parent’s told the doctor that they didn’t want to amputate his legs off, so they decided to try to let them heal. A few years later, Cunningham started running endurance runs with his friends. He always won. Then, he started running at the state fair, and before to long, his family had an entire shelf that was used to keep his rewards and trophies. During his running career in high school, Cunningham always ran the mile and would get around 4:40-4:30 for his time. He eventually got a scholarship to run in college, and word began to spread about a young promising youth from the University of Kansas. During his college career, Cunningham broke the world record for the indoor mile-run. He held the world record until 1937. During the Olympics in 1936 Cunningham broke the U.S.A.’s outdoor mile record with an amazing time of 3:48.4, but unfortunately he took second place over-all. He eventually retired, but was still known as one of the greatest runners of all time. Glenn Cunningham never gave up; even when he was told he would never walk again. I think his story is very inspiring, and that’s why he is someone I look up to. He never gave up, even when things didn't look so good for him, and he always kept trying to do his best. My favorite characteristic of his, is definitely his perseverance. I always try hard in school and sports, and perseverance helps me to give my all to get good grades. Whenever I'm about to race and I feel nervous, or sick I always think about what he did and it helps my try harder. One of my favorite sayings that matches up to his life is "Try and Fail, But Never Fail to Try."