Sophomore Heidi Engelhardt’s cross-country and track coach tried to get her to quit the team a year and a half ago.

What the coach received in return was anything but a quitter.

Engelhardt said her passion for running kicked in early as both her dad, who also ran at Iowa State and her brother, who ran at Arizona State, were both heavily involved in the sport.

Through her first three years of high school, Engelhardt never reached the varsity level on her cross-country team while attending Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School in New York, where her family moved in 2009. After returning home to Westerville, Ohio in 2012 for her senior year, Engelhardt became the No. 2 runner on the Westerville North High School cross-country team.

During the track season at Westerville North, Engelhardt recorded personal best times of 19:11 in the 5000-meter, 11:45.75 in the 3200-meter and 5:28.47 in the 1600-meter. The next step after high school was deciding where to go to college, and the decision was finalized after just one campus visit.

“My dad and my mom went here, so all of us kids had to come to Iowa State at least for a visit and I just really fell in love with the campus and the program that I’m in, which is culinary science,” Engelhardt said.

The transition from high school cross-country and track and field to college meant more mileage and a more competitive environment. The adjustment was one of confidence for Engelhardt.

On the other hand, ISU coach Andrea Grove-McDonough wasn’t sure the freshman at the time would be able to contribute at such a high level.

“[We thought] maybe a lower-level Division I school or Division II might be a more appropriate home for [Engelhardt]. We just didn’t see a lot early on that got us all that excited about how she would be able to contribute,” Grove-McDonough said. “We definitely tried to push her off the team, tried to get her to willingly quit, tried to talk her out of it. She wouldn’t go away, as we say.”

As time progressed, Engelhardt’s always-positive attitude and determination to stay a part of the team proved to her coaches why she belonged a Cyclone.

“She was always tough,” Grove-McDonough said. “We started picking up on that pretty quickly that she was a tough kid. She was never going to quit. In that process, [Engelhardt] gained a lot of respect from the staff, myself in particular, and her teammates for sure.”

In addition to the respect she has gained, Engelhardt is someone who her teammates say they look forward to seeing at practice each day.

Redshirt senior Katy Moen said Engelhardt is a free spirit and positive energy to have around, and makes the days a little more exciting and lighthearted.

“[Heidi’s] very self-motivated and I think when no one else believed in her, she believed in herself, and that’s really important,” Moen said.

Moen recalled one occasion from last season when Engelhardt gained a lot of respect from her teammates.

“There’s one workout that I remember last year, one of the first few where we were doing mile repeats on the course,” Moen said. “All of us were all done with our workouts and then here’s Heidi still trying to complete her mile workout and we almost forgot about her, but she’s still working hard and rather than stopping when she could have stopped, she kept going.”

Grove-McDonough said some athletes on the team are worried or stressed about going to practice each day, and it almost becomes a job. Engelhardt is just the opposite — she looks forward to the practice-portion of her day.

“I have yet to see [Engelhardt] come in, and we’re in year two now, come into practice with any kind of negative attitude or any negative body language,” Grove-McDonough said.

The work ethic has paid off, and it’s noticeable in the improvements Engelhardt has made throughout her time at Iowa State.

As a freshman, Engelhardt placed 17th at the Bulldog 4K Classic and 39th at the Iowa Black and Gold Invite during the cross-country season.

In the indoor season, Engelhardt competed in six meets. She the ran the mile three times throughout the season, dropping time in each event and setting a personal record at the Big 12 Indoor Championships.

Engelhardt improved even more during the outdoor season. At the Musco Invitational, she recorded a time of 11:11.49 in the 3000-meter steeplechase, good for the seventh fastest time in school history.

The 2014-15 year has included another increase in progress for Engelhardt. In the first cross-country race at the Bulldog 4K Classic, Engelhardt placed first overall in the event. She went on to place 30th overall at both the Big 12 Championship and NCAA Midwest Regional. She was also the seventh runner for Iowa State in the team’s runner-up finish at the NCAA Championships on Nov. 22.

Not even a month into the current indoor season, Engelhardt has already set personal records in the 1000-meter, mile and 3000-meter.

“Heidi’s the kind of girl I see as a natural leader, a natural captain at some point, and I hope that’s the role she assumes next year,” Grove-McDonough said. “She’s going to be successful as an athlete at this level. What that means … I don’t even know yet.”

Grove-McDonough’s current view about the role she expects Engelhardt to eventually fill compared to how she viewed the second-year runner when she became a member of the team is like night and day. 

If this past year and a half is any indication of what lies ahead, Engelhardt will be looking forward to a very bright future. The next step is the Iowa State Classic on Feb. 13 and 14. 

“It’s kind of a mystery what I’m capable of,” Engelhardt said. “Obviously, being with coach McDonough and coach Palmer is a good fit for me and I’ll listen to anything they have to say. I believe in it and I trust it. I just hope to accomplish more than I have last year, either time-wise or place-wise. Anything that would be an improvement would be an accomplishment.”