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Morristown West’s Andee Fitzgerald signed to run cross country at Johnson University on Monday.

Fitzgerald recently had surgery on both of her hips, but she didn’t let that stop her. Instead, she let it shape her and lead her to running at the next level.

“Just getting back to it literally means a world,” she said. “It’s just given me a completely new outlook on how grateful I should be to get to run and to get to have this team and continue academically and athletically, and just realize it’s a privilege.”

Her surgery began with feelings of heartbreak, but it later gave her a new outlook on the sport, and she wasn’t going to take for granted any longer.

“It was genuinely the most difficult thing that I’ve had to go through,” Fitzgerald said. “First and foremost, putting up with that pain for so long and then realizing I was going to be out for almost a year, it was really heartbreaking. But it’s helped me realize who I am as a person, and that I’m more than an athlete, and I’m always going to be more than that. And it’s just carried me through a lot, and it’s something that I’m going to take with me forever, to realize that no matter what I’m doing, it’s a privilege, and I should act like it.”

And through it all, it was her West High teammates who carried her.

“It has meant so much to me to be here and to be with this team, and they’re gonna be friends like for the rest of my life,” Fitzgerald said. “I just love this team so much. I love hanging out with them. They’re not even just a team, they’re people that I pick to hang out with. I would choose to hang out with them outside of practice, and they’ve really shaped me as a person. They’ve carried me through so much hardship and trials in my life, and they’ve always been there for me, and I just want to be there for them the same that they are for me.”

While holding on to her bonds from high school, Fitzgerald is looking forward to forming new bonds at the next level.

“I’m really excited just to meet new people and make new memories, because I know one girl on the team right now, and everyone else is new,” she said. “I’m so excited because I can just be me in front of these people, and we can just love and cheer each other on.”

Just as her time at West has shaped her, Fitzgerald is excited to see where her new experiences at Johnson will take her.

Fitzgerald will major in Criminal Justice and Psychology at Johnson while also pursuing the Bible and Theology degree that is required at the university.

“I know that I’m running cross country, but instead of identifying as an athlete, I would rather identify as a teammate,” Fitzgerald said. “I would rather people say she’s a good teammate, rather than she was fast, and that’s what I’m looking for, whereas at West, it was I want to be a better runner, but I want to be a better person now. And that’s just what I’ve learned in the past years. It’s not really about how fast you are at times. It’s more about who you are as a person, and that’s what I want to act like whenever I go to Johnson.”