Don\u2019t get the wrong idea. Taylor Cutcliff \u201919 wouldn\u2019t want to relive the worst months of her life, when doctors told her she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. But Cutcliff, a standout defender during her four years on the Seton Hall women\u2019s soccer team, admits that those frightening days back in Springfield, Pennsylvania, paved the way for her involvement in community service and started her on a journey filled with classroom accolades, on-field accomplishments and a devotion to helping others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a way, it made me into the person I am today,\u201d says Cutcliff, a mathematical finance major and branch analyst at Morgan Stanley.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u201d happened in junior high, when Cutcliff broke a bone in her ankle. This relatively straightforward injury became dangerous when doctors removed the cast and discovered she suffered from reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) \u2014 her brain believed she was still injured so kept pumping blood to the area. She endured four surgeries, but they didn\u2019t help. Doctors told her she was destined for a wheelchair, difficult news for an eighth-grader who loved running free on the soccer field.<\/p>\n
During this downtime, she socialized more and participated in community activities such as picking up trash on weekends. She discovered that she loved being involved, and loved helping. Then doctors found a cyst, which they removed, and the pain and the condition disappeared.<\/p>\n
Cutcliff returned to star on the soccer field. But now she was also an extraordinary student and champion volunteer. That\u2019s the all-around package that arrived at Seton Hall, where she juggled Division I athletics with dozens of activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver my entire career there have been about five students that I will never be able to replace,\u201d says Brandon Larmore \u201908, the director of the Academic Resource Center who worked with Cutcliff during her time as a tutor and as a Habitat for Humanity volunteer. \u201cAnd she\u2019s on that list. She\u2019s incredibly smart, very personable, very warm, welcoming, friendly, energetic. Everything you want in someone who\u2019s bound to help others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cutcliff\u2019s accomplishments read like those accumulated over a decade instead of four years: BIG EAST Freshman Scholar Athlete; PirateThon co-chair; part of the top-ranked Leadership Certificate Program; Collegiate Challenge chair for Habitat for Humanity. She also served as soccer captain.<\/p>\n
As a peer tutor, she helped students with math, some business classes, and accounting and biology. She says, \u201cIt meant so much when you\u2019re working with a student for maybe two weeks and they come back and they\u2019re like, \u2018I got a B,\u2019 or, \u2018I got an A on my test.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Larmore marveled at Cutcliff\u2019s willingness to tackle new adventures, including Habitat for Humanity trips where students help with building homes, painting or even demolition.<\/p>\n
In Delray Beach, Fla., a woman told students how she\u2019d been trying to paint her house for seven years, saying, \u201cI have a daughter and she wants to be proud of her house. You guys are like angels from heaven.\u201d Cutcliff remembers, \u201cI was like, this is why I did this all semester, for moments like these where I don\u2019t realize how much I actually have and how much I should actually be grateful for. It really motivated me to give all I could to Habitat. It\u2019s definitely going to be something that I keep doing, well after Seton Hall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get the wrong idea. Taylor Cutcliff \u201919 wouldn\u2019t want to relive the worst months of her life, when doctors told her she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. But Cutcliff, a standout defender during her four years on the Seton Hall women\u2019s soccer team, admits that those frightening days back…<\/p>\n