Sydney Huffman was still in junior high when she started talking to her mother about the possibility of attending the University of Illinois Springfield.
UIS didn’t have a women’s cross country or track team, but that didn’t matter to Huffman.
“I wanted to go to UIS,” she said. “I remember talking to my mom about it when I was in eighth grade.”
The Southeast High School senior is getting her wish and then some.
Huffman has signed a NCAA Division II letter of intent to run for UIS.
So she’s getting her original wish of attending the university and she will become a member of the Prairie Stars’ cross country and track teams.
Both programs are new. They’ve only existed since 2015.
UIS coach Mike De Witt is getting a four-year varsity runner who enjoyed a breakout cross country season this year.
Since the Stars’ running programs are new, she’s looking forward to helping them grow.
“I want to try to help with the program,” she said. “When I visited, I saw a couple of familiar faces from competitions.”
She plans to major in psychology.
“I’ve been looking at UIS for a while,” Huffman said. “I like how close to home it is. I know one of the professors there. I know a lot of people who graduated from there. They all said good things about UIS.”
This article appeared in The State Journal-Register on November 27, 2017.
Read the entire article online.
