As she tried to help the young girl next to her figure out the obstacle course in front of them, her eyes were met with a look of confusion.
Quickly realizing the language barrier between the two of them was not going away any time soon, she got down on her hands and knees and started crawling through the maze without hesitation.
If you told Rachael Scoones this trip would change her life, she wouldn’t have believed you.
At least not until that very moment.
It was the summer after her freshman year at SUNY Delhi and Scoones, a 2018 graduate of Waterville Central School, was in Costa Rica. When she got there, the sky was gray and sheets of rain poured down on the tropical Central American country. This was nothing like what Scoones had imagined Costa Rica to look like.
She was there for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play soccer with other women from all over the United States, work with Special Olympics and visit local schools through an organization called Beyond Sports.
“Beyond Sports is an organization where Division II and Division III athletes get an opportunity to travel and go play their sport along with doing volunteer efforts and just enjoying the culture you are experiencing because a lot of athletes don’t get the chance to travel overseas and do stuff like that,” Scoones said.
Luckily for Scoones, the rain was short lived as the sun finally reappeared. She set out to take on experiences that completely changed her life path.
“I definitely had a different outlook on life after I went down there and the memories still stick with me to this day,” Scoones said.
Starting out at SUNY Delhi as a veterinary science major, she quickly realized becoming a veterinarian was not what she wanted to pursue after all.
“I always had two passions. It was animals or sports and I tried animals and it didn’t really work so I went over to sports,” Scoones said.
Well on her way to a newly-established future in recreation and sports management, the daughter of John and Jody Scoones of Deansboro picked up not…