Nathan Clark
ALEX SANDOVAL – DESERT VISTA BIKE TEAM COACH
My name is Alex Sandoval. I am a father of two, a 20 year Captain with the City of Phoenix Fire Department, and a 5 year coach with the Desert Vista High School bike team. I have known Nate for three years and I feel that he embodies everything the scholarship is looking for in an individual. Nate has been with the team for the past three years and when he arrived to his first practice he had very little experience riding and was not in the best physical condition. On Nate’s his first ride out with the team he was having a very difficult time. Half way through the ride Nate was winded and vomiting. The team huddled around Nate and supported him with encouragement and by the end of the ride the other coaches and I spoke and did not think he would return to practice with the team. We were all wrong. Nate was the first one to show up the next day and continued to be the first to arrive since then. Nate continued to work hard and by the end of the season Nate was leading the team in fitness and skills. He is now considered to be one of the team leaders who the others look up to for support and advice. Nate has always been very humble and shows great sportsmanship even when things don’t go his way and he is the first one to congratulate his competitors. Nate is also a very well rounded individual, he works very hard to to keep his grades up while taking advanced courses to prepare himself for collage, he is a very talented musician and he is ways very respectful to his coaches and other adults. As a father, fireman, and coach I truly believe that Nate is the type of individual that we hope for the country’s future and would be the perfect representative for your scholarship.
ALEXANDRA PINKOWSKI – Teammate
Nathan Clark has impacted my life, as well as many other lives, in many ways. Mr. Clark has shown, to me and many others that with some time and effort you can be a beginner at the start of a competition, and then halfway through it, be within the top of third of their class/category. He personally showed me this by including me in small sprints up hills. By making me sprint up the hill he was making me a better athlete, allowing me to be stronger, faster, and an overall better competitor; he also was making me a better person, he kept telling me “one more hill, just one more hill” after the third extra hill, I stopped believing it was just one more…but he convinced me use all of my energy then, he would get me to do one more hill, he showed me the true amount of energy that I possess. Nathan has shown leadership and honor in mountain biking by starting a club. He leads every practice that takes place, he engages new people in the sport, he coachs anyone who wants or needs it, and he makes sure people know what to do when encountered with an unfamiliar situation. From my point of view, it appears that Nathan has made himself better by being in better physical shape than before, by being more social, and by taking a position of leadership in his club, he has allowed himself to become a mentor for anyone who needs one.
Nathan Clark is a remarkable young man who is determined to make his mark on the world. So far he has done this through mountain biking, but I know he will go on to do bigger and better things with his life. He will continue to leave his mark on the world through out his entire life.