"I think 2008 was the culmination of my collegiate career. We just had, as a team, so much fun, so much success. The work we had been putting in all kind of came to a head at the perfect time. Even now, talking about it, I get chills. Running the 400 was about kind of checking the boxes. This is what I’m here to do, right? This was my job. And I just need my training, my weight room workouts, my race strategy, my race psychology, everything needs to come together at this one specific time. And it did. After that was done, I was like, ‘OK, the 4 by 4 [relay], this is my fun.’ I wasn’t anxious, wasn’t nervous. I felt like this was the time for me to represent my school. My coach brought us together before the race, and I realized in that moment that was going to be the last time I would be running in a Penn State uniform. I felt so emotional. I got myself together, and we went out there and did what we had to do. I got the baton [for the final leg], and what shocked me was that I had caught up to the first-place runner within the first 150 meters of the race, and I’m thinking, ‘I could go past her right now.’ I remembered my coach saying ‘Hold off, do not pass her until the last 150 meters.’ I had some discipline, and at 150 meters I just took off. I remember running that last 150 meters with so much joy, like that pure joy when you see little kids just being able to run, and feeling really proud to represent my team.”

Shana Cox ’07 Lib was an 11-time All-American at Penn State and part of a gold-medal-winning 4x400 relay team at the 2012 Indoor World Championships. She is a critical care ICU nurse in Raleigh, N.C.