Marne Sullivan has been an athlete for the majority of her life.

But something set Sullivan apart from her fellow competitors — something that most people even today aren’t aware of: she was born deaf.

But that didn’t stop the Wilmette resident from achieving great athletic success at New Trier. As she heads off to run at Boston College in a couple of days, Sullivan leaves the school as the second-most decorated girls track and field athlete in school history.

Sullivan leaves the Trevians program with seven state medals, the second-most in program history, medaling in four straight state finals, including anchoring the 3,200 meter relay to a state title in May 2019, as well as qualifying and competing twice in the New Balance HS Indoor Nationals and once in the New Balance HS Outdoor Nationals.

“Actually I didn’t run in the prelims on Friday for a four-by-eight,” Sullivan said. “I wasn’t supposed to run the four-by-eight in the championships on Saturday, so it was a bit more of a surprise that I was running it.

“I had to run the four-by-eight before my 800, I’d never really ran the four-by-800 and 800 during my entire season. So I felt that I had a little bit of lack of endurance running both races, but I was very happy with the result in the four-by-800. It mostly came as a shock, though, because I did not think I was going to run it, but I ended up winning it.”

A reason that many people might not know that Sullivan was born hearing impaired is that when she was 3-and-a-half, she had surgery to insert cochlear implants. When she was younger, she went to Child’s Voice, an all-deaf school, before transitioning to mainstream school at Wilmette’s McKenzie Elementary School.

A cochlear implant is an interior device that gets updated every couple of years. She can turn it on and off, but for track meets will put double sided tape on it so it doesn’t fall off when she runs, as well as wearing a headband. Sometimes during school she will use a microphone to help hear the teachers better. Unfortunately, she couldn’t  use it really for her coaches, so she just normally would stand close to them or ask her teammates, “Oh, can you repeat what the workout was for today?”

Other than making sure the implant didn’t fall out, she said the only other time that the implant could have been an issue was during her freshman year when she ran the leadoff leg of the relay. Being nervous that she wouldn’t hear the gun, her coaches took action.

“My coaches talked to the IHSA and asked if one of my coaches could come down to the track and hold my blocks,” she said. “So when the guy would say, ‘set,’ my coach would say ‘set’ right after, same with ‘on your marks’ and then the gun would go off.

“The guy who does the gun would also have a flag, so he would wave down the flag. I’ve had that at a couple of meets where the guy will have a flag and just wave it down with the gun, which is super helpful for me.”

Sullivan’s success at New Trier also helped her in her collegiate decision. The majority of the schools she was looking out were on the East coast, but when she stepped onto Boston College’s campus, it was just something that set it apart from the others.

“it wasn’t really on my radar until last July, like mid-July,” Sullivan said. “When I stepped on campus, it was gorgeous. I loved it. I walked all around campus. I like how the city’s five minutes away. I also met the track team at Boston College and they were all super cool and super friendly.

“I think just when I stepped on that campus and met the team, it felt like a family to me and I knew that this was the place where I wanted to go because not only did they have track, but they also have other aspects of college. Academically they’re an awesome school, beautiful campus to walk around and great people, great environment.”

While Sullivan isn’t sure what she wants to study yet, she said she’s interested in psychology, communications and marketing.

But before she gets to Chestnut Hill, she’s been working out to prepare herself for what she’s going to encounter collegiately.

She’s been running on her own throughout the week, anywhere from four to six miles at a time as she builds her mileage and endurance. She also works out at Redefined Fitness in Wilmette.

While she won’t be running on the cross-country team at Boston College, save maybe a meet or two, she’ll be training with the squad to help build her mileage and endurance.

“So I think I’m going to try the 1500 in college,” she said. “I definitely want to run in the DMR (Distance Medley Relay). I believe I’ll run with the upperclassmen in the DMR and I feel that BC would have a very strong DMR if they put me and some other girls in there.

“I’ll probably focus running the 800, but I love running the relays. Track and field is an individual sport as well as a team sport. So I love running the relays. I love being able to get ready with my teammates, my relay teammates. So I get very excited about running those.”