The next time you are walking past The Student Bookstore, take a moment to look at the mural that covers the side of the store facing Heister Street.

Look past the portrait of Graham Spanier and past the shrine to Joe Paterno. Skip the other Penn State titans that adorn the wall and search the bottom right along the sidewalk until you find a smiling young girl climbing out of a pool.

Pay special attention to that smile because without it, her story would be just another sad example of what can happen when too much pressure is heaped on an athlete too immature to handle it.

The smile on the wall belongs to Kristen Woodring, a bubbly and energetic young woman who racked up Big Ten swimming titles like no one in Penn State history during her freshman and sophomore years, only to almost walk away from the sport forever for reasons that even she could not explain.

"Almost" being the key word.

Kristen Woodring came to Penn State in the fall of 2000 as the nation's most highly touted swimmer in the breaststroke after a scholastic career that left her as one of the most decorated high school swimmers in history.

In her three-and-a-half years at Wilson High School, she won three straight individual state championships in the 100-meter breaststroke and broke fellow Wilson graduate Kristy Kowal's national high school record in the 100 breaststroke. Her times qualified her for the 2000 Olympic trials and she graduated from high school a semester early to train in Arizona.

The training was arduous and time consuming, but at the time it was what she wanted.

"I probably didn't have the most normal childhood," she said, "I was completely focused on swimming in high school and I gave up a lot of the little things, the sleepovers with the girls and stuff to train."

Woodring entered the trials seeded sixth in the 100 breaststroke, needing to grab one of the top two times to qualify for the Sydney games. She finished fifth, missing the Olympics by just a second.

However, her expectations made it hard for her to enjoy her strong showing.

"Obviously, you want to win, but anything above eighth is good. At the time, I don't think I really stopped to realize what I had accomplished," she said.

Following the trials, Woodring continued training in anticipation of attending Penn State in the fall. She had committed to Penn State during her junior year of high school, happy to be going to a top-flight swimming program and working with a coach with whom she was comfortable. Upon arriving at Penn State, Woodring carried the weight of tremendous expectations on her shoulders. Expectations from her coach, her family, and her teammates who knew her reputation.

Initially, she handled the pressure amazingly well, and she took the Big Ten by storm in her freshman year. After dominating her events in the team's dual meets all year, she won two events and set two Big Ten records at the conference championship.

She also placed third in the NCAA championships in the 100 breaststroke, 10th in the 200-meter breaststroke and captured Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors.

No swimmer at Penn State ever had a better start to a career, and this only added to the pressure that was weighing her down.

As her sophomore year progressed, Woodring felt that weight getting heavier and heavier, eventually pulling her into the depths of depression.

"I just felt like I had to swim fast," she said. "For the first time, I started to question my focus and wonder if it was worth all the time and stress."

Woodring held up admirably under the strain, once again winning Big Ten titles in the 100 breaststroke and the 200-meter medley relay, this time adding a title in the 400-meter medley relay.

Woodring's contributions helped the Nittany Lions win the 2001-02 Big Ten team title, but at that point she was too depressed to even care.

"It had started to affect my whole life," she said, "I was barely sleeping. I had constant panic attacks."

For the first time, Woodring confided in her parents about what she was going through.

"Looking back, I just didn't understand," her father, Ron Woodring, said. "It was tough because we wanted to help her, but really didn't know what to do."

After visits to a psychologist failed to improve the situation, Woodring decided that the only way she could be happy was to quit swimming and forfeit her full scholarship.

In October of 2002 she walked in to coach Bill Dorenkott's office with a list of reasons why she was retiring from the competitive swimming.

"It was a day I thought could come," Dorenkott said. "It really wasn't a surprise. I saw it coming, but just hoped that it wouldn't happen while she was in the program."

While Dorenkott was not shocked by the decision, Ron Woodring's reaction was different.

"We obviously knew she was not happy, but I didn't think it would ever come to that," Ron Woodring said. "I told her that there was nothing I could do to stop her, but if she was going to give up her scholarship, I wasn't going to pay for school."

In the weeks that followed, Kristen Woodring was in heaven.

After spending nearly all her time training since she had been eight years old, she found the free time liberating. She could go out on the weekends without having to worry about early morning practices and spend more time with her friends.

Yet after a month or two, the reality of working her way through college began to settle in. She took three jobs, including one as a hostess at The Deli Restaurant, 113 Heister St., where she was confronted with the smiling face on the mural on a daily basis.

As the year wore on the panic attacks returned and so did the depression that had plagued her for nearly a year.

"I went to Florida with my mom and sister for a vacation over winter break, and I didn't even want to lay out in the sun because I couldn't stand being near a pool," she said.

The desire to return to swimming gradually grew on her, culminating with the team's third-place finish at the 2002-03 Big Ten championships.

Woodring spent the whole week glued to her computer, skipping classes to follow the times as they were posted, aching as the team finished third and wondering what she could have done to help. Eventually Woodring swallowed her pride and went back to Dorenkott's office.

"He told me to think about it for a month to make sure it was really the right thing to do," she said. "He wanted to make sure that I was coming back for the right reasons."

Eventually she did decide to return to the team, with the agreement that she would not regain her scholarship until the spring semester.

"Quitting was hard, but coming back was 10 times worse," she said. "I felt awkward around the other girls. No one was really mean, but I had to prove to them that I was serious."

Dorenkott says the other athletes handled the situation pretty well.

"There were some hard feelings," he said. "When she quit she lashed out a little bit at that staff, the team, her family, but the team is like a family and there has to be an element of forgiveness."

Woodring swam extremely well all year and again won three Big Ten titles as the team finished a close second to Michigan.

Yet the things most important to Woodring this time around are not the individual accolades, but team success and the chance to leave Penn State on better terms. Woodring has once again qualified to go to the Olympic trials, which will be held this July, but is not sure if she is interested in going.

There is also the question about whether or not she will use her remaining year of eligibility. When asked about these things she simply smiles.

"Those things aren't questions I'm ready to deal with yet," she says. "All that matters is that this time my career can end the way it should."

All that matters is that it ends with a smile.