Megan Dillard never was a super athlete. Her highest athletic accomplishments were being a cheerleader and softball player in high school.

But the Athens High School teacher proved you can do just about anything you want if you work hard for it by appearing on the American Ninja Warrior television show this summer, and now she wants to be an inspiration for others.

Dillard spoke at Friday’s meeting of the Athens Rotary Club, where she described her journey to the competition and how she has grown and learned from it.

“On the show, you see people who are professional athletes, Olympic athletes or stunt people,” Dillard said. “I’m just a teacher. When I started training, I couldn’t even do one pull-up. It took me a month to learn to climb a rope. If I can do (American Ninja Warrior) through hard work and being stubborn, then anyone can do it. We try to inspire youth by saying things like, ‘Don’t give up,’ but how are we showing that? I want to inspire people by showing them what can be done.”

Dillard decided to try out for the show basically on a whim, having watched it on television. She trained for two years without a guarantee of going on the show, working out at the Ninja Obstacle Academy in Huntsville three to five times per week.

She applied for the show in January, having to submit a three-page application and make a submission video as to why she wanted to be on the show. The show’s producers don’t just look for great athletes, but also positive stories, and Dillard’s submission video featuring her three-legged dog Zeus, who is used as a therapy dog, won over the producers. They invited her on the show in March.

Zeus, a shepherd mix, lost one of his hind legs after an infection caused by a broken femur he suffered as a puppy. Dillard was inspired by her dog’s perseverance after the leg amputation and decided to make Zeus a therapy dog. Zeus comes to school with her twice a week to be with the students, including special needs students, who enjoy the time they get to spend with the dog.

Zeus was also an inspiration for Dillard during her training.

“He motivated me because he doesn’t give up,” she said. “He’s got three legs, and he has every reason in the world to not want to do some of the things normal dogs do. But he jumps, he swims, and he can outrun my four-legged dog. To see him not give up encourages me to not give up.”

Of the approximately 70,000 people who applied to participate in the show, only about 500 were selected. Dillard competed with about 100 other people in the Miami qualifying event in April.

Not only did Dillard get selected to compete on the show, she was one of the very few people who were featured on the television broadcast, and a camera crew came to her Hartselle home and Athens Intermediate School, where she taught last year, to film a feature that played before her attempt. The show she competed on aired in June.

“They filmed for about 12 hours, and it was all edited down to about 2 minutes,” Dillard said with a laugh. “I learned a lot about the television process.”

Dillard advanced past the first two obstacles before falling on the third, breaking her arm in the process. She just recently got her cast off and returned to training about a month ago.

She hopes to go on the show again next year, but is not guaranteed a spot. She’ll have to submit another application and another video and hope she is chosen to get some redemption for this year’s fall.

“I have no idea if I’ll be invited back,” Dillard said. “Sometimes if you get on the show, you have a better chance to go back, but I know a lot of people who competed one year and haven’t gotten invited back. We’ll see. Fingers crossed.”

Even if she doesn’t get invited back, Dillard accomplished what she set out to do through hard work and determination and said she hopes her students can be inspired from her journey.

“As a teacher, you see a lot of kids who give up on themselves because they think they’re not good at math or another subject,” Dillard said. “But I wasn’t good at pull-ups. I wasn’t good at swinging on a bar or climbing a rope. But all of that I overcame just because I wanted to and I was determined to do better. I think that everyone can do that.”