SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Jackie Jaszcz

You Have To Take What Life Gives You

Jackie Jaszcz has been told that she is the best athlete in her family since her grandmother who was a professional track athlete. Her father played tennis and basketball in high school, but hung up is sneakers for a soundboard and speakers.

Jaszcz is the daughter of four-time Grammy-winning music engineer and producer, John Jaszcz. He has worked with gospel, country, R&B and jazz artists such as Kirk Franklin, Billy Ray Cyrus, Wynonna Judd, SONICFLOOD, Hezekiah Walker, John Michael Montgomery, George Clinton and Funkadelic. Being the daughter of such music industry figure, Jaszcz has had the chance to go to the Grammys and rub elbows with stars in the studios.

“The year he took our family to the Grammys two years ago was when he won his second one. And he won two more the year after that. That was really cool. It’s really fun having your dad do that because you get to go to all the studios and everything. We used to hang out with Billy Ray Cyrus when he used to work with him, but that’s like the most famous person I think I’ve met. He won the Grammy for Kirk Franklin so I met him then. He didn’t work with one of the Backstreet Boys but I got to meet him because he was at the studio that my dad was working at one time.”

Jaszcz started playing recreational volleyball in the fourth grade and fell in love with it.

“I really liked it and I got really good at it,” Jaszcz said. “I was always better than everyone else there. I don’t really know why. I guess I was just more athletic. It just grew on me and I started loving the game. It was so much fun for me because I was really good at it. I just kept going with it.”

She played on the varsity team while in high school, which led her to Samford. Jaszcz committed to play for the Bulldogs under second-year head coach Michelle Durban. She would be one of six freshmen joining the squad of one senior, two juniors and two sophomores. The newcomers outnumbered the veterans and became immediate contributors on the floor.

After her freshman season, Jaszcz ranked third on the single-season assists list with 1,245 and sixth on the all-time assists leaderboard. She was the sixth best setter in the Ohio Valley Conference, one of only three freshmen.

Her sophomore year looked promising, amassing almost half of her freshman year’s assist total by the 15th match of the year. The sophomore had totaled 503 digs so far, just over 10 digs a set. However, at the end of the first set in Samford’s match against Kennesaw State on Sept. 19, 2006, Jaszcz’s season came to a screeching halt as she hurt her knee coming down from a set.

“I pretty much landed really weird and went down and tore my ACL,” Jaszcz said. “It was the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me. I’ve never had any serious injury before.”

The Bulldogs had earned four wins prior to the Kennesaw State match. Samford defeated the Owls, 3-1, but were only able to get one more win after that.

“Having to sit there was hard,” Jaszcz said. “Especially that season. I was the only setter, so Courtney Gay had to come in and set. It was really hard to watch your team crumble in a way. I think after that I tried really hard to support my team because I knew it was going to be really hard for me to come back.”

Jaszcz was sidelined for the rest of the season but worked relentlessly to get back into shape for the next season.

“The next season, it was definitely a huge struggle for me because I was just hurting all of the time,” Jaszcz said. “You had to push through and still support your team, even though you know you’re not going to play the same. You know, you’re body is just not the same. It was still fun just being part of the team though. Then, towards the middle and end of the season, I started to feel like my body was getting back to what it used to be.”

Jaszcz was able to play in three matches during the 2007 season – at home against Tennessee Tech and on the road at Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky. However, during this past spring’s workouts, she injured her knee again and had to endure another surgery and recovery process. In retrospect, Jaszcz says that she has just learned that “you have to take what life gives you. Everything happens for a reason.”

Through it all, Jaszcz has continued to concentrate on her education. The journalism and mass communications major has centered in on broadcast journalism. She says she wants to get her master’s degree in communication and continue to gain experience so she can eventually move into on-camera work. The senior will graduate from Samford in May with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication.

More excitement comes for Jaszcz this summer as she will get married to former Samford basketball standout Travis Peterson in June in her hometown of Franklin, Tenn. The couple will then move overseas to Europe where Peterson will continue his professional basketball career. Jaszcz hopes to pursue her master’s degree overseas as well.

Jaszcz says that what she will miss most about Samford is her friends and being part of the Samford volleyball team. The squad has become such great friends, a family, even.

“I think the reason why we are all so close is because we’ve all gone through everything together,” Jaszcz said. “We’ve all invested so much into this program. We’ve been through the worst times and now we’ve been through the best times together. I think we’ve just grown to be really great friends. I can’t even describe it. It’s one of the reasons that has kept me engaged in everything. As much I have been away off the court, it’s so great to have your best friends there around you all of the time.”

Like the others, her most memorable moment will have been the 2008 season.

“This whole season has been a great memory,” Jaszcz said. “Just seeing everyone really come together and play as a team and really work so hard is so great. Not that we haven’t worked hard in the past, it is just a different vibe this year and it’s really awesome to be able to be a part of that.

It feels awesome to top off my career with a season like this. Seriously, since I got here my freshman year, there were six freshmen, and all we talked about that whole time was when we are seniors, we are going to be awesome. We are going to win everything. And it just feels so good to be able to say that now. Even though I can’t play, I’m still a part of it. And it’s awesome to be able to see it happen.”