by Maddie Bentley
Lakeland senior writing major
Abby Runkel: Q&A Session on Her Four-Year Journey as a Muskie Student-Athlete
Abby Runkel, a senior at Lakeland, ismajoring in Exercise Science with the career ambition of wanting to be a physical/occupational therapist. She is a 3-time recipient of the NACC Scholar-Athlete Award. Runkel is on the Lakeland soccer team. Her position is defender and has appeared in 62 overall soccer games and has started in 56 of them with 4,885 minutes played.
Q: How would you describe your transition from freshman year to now?
A: “I feel like freshman year I had a big group of friends and now I have my core group of friends and acquaintances. The soccer team, especially, is a lot closer now and the team culture is better than it was when I came in as a freshman. In the school aspect, classes are easier to go to because people take higher-level classes more seriously than the required intro level classes.”
Q: Could you describe your experience as a member of the soccer team?
A: “Coming into it was hard because our coach got fired and we had to go through the changes of that transition, but sophomore year we got our head coach and it’s more of a constant and the stability of our team has helped us grow significantly. As I said to the previous question, our team culture got significantly better after we got our new coach too.”
Q: How have your connections with people on campus helped you towards your future aspirations?
A: “Just being close with my professors has helped. I’ve had 4 different professors for exercise, so having to build relationships with all of them was difficult but necessary to do well in those classes. Dr [Andrew] Karls has helped me grow as a student significantly too. Overall, just having those positive relationships helps along with working hard at everything you do.
Q: What is one thing you wish you would have done differently at school?
A: “I wish I would have gone out more freshman year. I definitely wanted to stay in and study, get work done, prepare for the next assignments, etc. I felt really isolated because I stayed in so much.”
Q: What advice would you give to future student-athletes?
A: “I would say the biggest thing is to branch outside of your teammates. Having a wide network is good, especially down the road. Putting in the effort to meet and talk to people is going to help you go places.”
