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A high school student from San Francisco who will be running track next year for Colgate is being called an inspiration to the Super Bowl champion New York Giants.

According to a story in the New York Post, Giants coach Tom Coughlin recently showed the team an ESPN video of University High senior Holland Reynolds crawling over the finish line to help secure the 2010 CIF Division V State Championship.

Reynolds, then a junior, was among the leaders but collapsed several yards from the line in Fresno due to a combination of dehydration and hypothermia. She was inspired to finish for University coach Jim Tracy, who is stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Coughlin, known for love of inspirational quotes and telling stories of historical figures such as Gen. George S. Patton, Winston Churchill, John Wooden, and Muhammad Ali, used Reynolds’ crawl as an example of how to finish the season.

Reynolds told the San Francisco Chronicle Friday that she was honored by the news of Coughlin’s tribute.

“Just crazy,” she said. “I never thought athletes in professional sport, who spend their whole lives competing, would ever look to a high schooler for inspiration.”

Reynolds, who placed sixth in November to help University to a ninth state crown, has another tie with New York. Next season she’ll run track at ������, having been recruited by coach Laura Nardelli.