Oct. 24, 2011
Old Dominion University women's soccer senior Jocelyn Weidner has been a consistent performer on the field for the Lady Monarchs. Weidner has appeared in 71 games the last four years and has started all but one contest the last four years. However, off the field Weidner is doing just as well, posting a 4.0 GPA while majoring in nursing.
The nursing major is one of the hardest and most time consuming at ODU, and had yet to be done before during head coach Joe Pereira's 17-year run as head coach.
"She's really our first nursing major so we basically learned a lot about class schedule and demands that the major requires," Pereira said. "Having us go through it for the first time and going through it with Jocelyn, gives us a reason to be comfortable, and everything she does it top notch. Its been a little bit tricky, but we will be forever understanding and we make it work."
Weidner has been able to do a balancing act between soccer and school, and does it incredibly well.
"I have a very organized chart on my computer," Weidner said. "I have class and practice, and I have certain hours I know I have to do work. There are a lot of late nights."
With all the time and effort that goes into soccer, it actually helps Weidner maintain her schedule.
"Soccer makes it more busy but it gives me a set schedule so I need to get my work done at a certain time. Its not like I can put off the work, I need to schedule my time and it keeps me grounded with more responsibility," Weidner explained
Originally, Weidner wanted to get into physical therapy, so her major was exercise science, but she quickly realized that nursing was the way to go.
"I wanted to work more with kids and nursing gives me more of a diverse population," Weidner added. "I have some aunts that are nurses and it just seemed like the hospital setting was more for me. I wanted to work with people and help people.
When Weidner first decided to change to nursing she came across some skepticism from one of her advisors.
"When I applied one of them told me I would have to quit soccer; she said an athlete had never done that," Weidner revealed. "To me that was more of a challenge, I talked to some people and I thought it was doable."
This semester, Weidner has stayed especially busy, along with her classes, she is doing a clinical in Virginia Beach. The work includes pre-planning a report, and working with a patient for an entire day and other various duties.
"I have one full day right now and after soccer is over I'll have two. We do all of the patients care, and we are responsible for getting their medicines, Weidner said. "The day before we have to go in and do eight pages of information about the patient, their conditions, medications, then we write our diagnosis of how we're going to treat them for the day. Then after the clinical we have to write a log of what we did that day."
To go along with the clinicals, Weidner also has three other classes this semester. One of the classes involves a lot of projects outside the classroom which sometimes makes it complicated working around soccer practice.
"The stuff for class is not on a set schedule so it makes it tough, coaches are really good and flexible with me and I really appreciate that," Weidner expressed. "They're very understanding, I don't miss a lot but I've come late to some practices and they're very good about it. I try to be on top of everything."
On the field, Weidner has been a measure of consistency throughout her four-year career for the Lady Monarchs. A key contributor as a freshman, starting 12 games on a 2008 team that won the second-most games in school history, the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania native has done everything asked of her at ODU.
"In every perspective she's just the engine, the spark plug that makes it all happen," Pereira added. "Jocelyn has been as consistent as you can be, she gives you an unbelievable work rate the entire game. We are extremely pleased with her all four years, not just on the field but in the classroom as well, she is just a classy individual.
For her career, Weidner has eight goals and eight assists while this year having three goals and two assists for eight points. However, in soccer just as much as any sport, numbers do not tell the whole story. As a midfielder, Weidner also carries a key defensive role for the Lady Monarchs.
"For me, I have a defensive role, I have to set up plays and get people going. I might not always get the goals or assists, but I try and set some plays up to help the team," Weidner said. "I don't need awards or anything, I just want our team to win and make the playoffs."
After Weidner completes her time at Old Dominion, she has a variety of options to choose from for her future.
"Right now what I'll probably do is move back to Pennsylvania and try and get a graduate nurse job," Weidner said. "I know Penn State Hershey has a good program. After that I think I'll go back to grad school to be a nurse practitioner. I think I want to do pediatrics, but will see."