Sept. 11, 2008

Athletes are competitive by nature. Within every student-athlete is the innate drive to succeed and dedicate themselves to the best of their ability in both sport and inside the classroom.

For Erin Bedell, the tune is similar, but with a twist. For the past two seasons Bedell has been stricken with both injury and illness that has limited her participation on both the Baylor cross county and track and field teams.

On the heels of a very successful freshmen campaign in which Bedell finished 40th overall at the NCAA Championships, the best showing nationally by a true freshman, and leading the cross country team to a 15th-place finish, expectations were extremely high for her sophomore year.

Unfortunately, illness and injury forced Bedell to redshirt during the 2006 cross country season.

"Looking back at it, I wish I would have just stopped running and taken a break," the Plano, Texas, product said. "Instead I kept running. I just didn't compete or do hard workouts but I was running a lot of mileage. I felt that it probably messed me up for the long run, but I was really stubborn and did not want to stop running."

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