« Women’s Soccer 2016

Darian Jenkins

School
UCLA
Position
Forward
Major
English

Classroom

Darian Jenkins has maintained a 3.427 GPA as an English major. She is a two-time Pac 12 All-Academic Honorable Mention selection and has been named to the UCLA Director’s Honor Roll seven times in her career.

Character

Jenkins is a team captain this season and is known and admired by her team for her class, maturity, compassion and fierce determination. She has fought through much adversity during her career, playing through but rarely sitting out when suffering through injuries such as a dislocated shoulder and a wrist fracture. She is one of the hardest workers on the team and works tirelessly to accomplish the goals she sets while bringing her teammates along with her. She leads vocally, leads by example and is a selfless team player. During the first half of the Bruins’ game at Texas A&M this season, she got a charley horse during a challenge for the ball and was injured on the play. As this was happening, the Aggies got a counter, leaving her as the deepest defender on the field. Despite her injury, she sprinted back to defend and kept the opponents from scoring. UCLA ended up winning the game 1-0.

Community

Jenkins has volunteered for many community service ventures during her time at UCLA, including Halloween visits the last two years to Mattel Children’s Hospital; Prime Time Games for the past three years, a full-inclusion peer-mentor sports program in which students coach, mentor and play alongside children with developmental disabilities; and numerous youth clinics. She annually has participated in the Adopt-A-Classroom program, corresponding with young students from a local classroom over the course of a season and encouraging them to excel in their studies, and in UCLA’s I’m Going to College program, which offers thousands of elementary, middle and high school students a unique college athletics experience while spreading the message of the importance of higher education. Additionally, she has volunteered as a coach and player at the Special Olympics, was a volunteer coach for AYSO and other teams, and has helped inner-city kids get involved in sports.

Competition

Jenkins has made a big impact at UCLA since her freshman year when she was one of just two players to start all 26 games. She led the team in scoring with 11 goals, five game-winning goals and 27 points and helped lead UCLA to its first-ever NCAA title in 2013. Jenkins received numerous honors in 2013, including NSCAA third-team All-America, first-team NSCAA All-Pacific Region, first-team All-Pac 12 and Pac 12 Freshman of the Year honors. As a sophomore, she scored six goals and ranked fifth on the team in scoring, and as a junior, she again ranked first on the team in goals-scored with five and received Honorable Mention All-Pac 12 acclaim. In the season opener in 2016, she recorded her first career hat trick.