Jenae Gibbens

Classroom

Gibbens was named to the Academic All-District 8 First Team and the Academic All-America Third Team in 2007 from ESPN The Magazine and CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America)... named the school’s Big West Conference Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year… marketing major with aspirations of running her own business after graduation… on track to graduate summa cum laude from the university in the spring of 2009. Recently, Gibbens was named to the 2008 CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District 8 First Team for the second straight season, First-team Academic All-American, and is now a candidate for CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors.

Character

Despite the fact that Jenae’s father abandoned her and her family at the age of 8, Jenae’s mom taught her that women are strong and self-sufficient and can achieve their dreams in the face of adversity. This outlook and the support of her mom and brother became the building blocks that started Jenae on the path from recreational to club to high school varsity to collegiate athlete. At each step of the way, Jenae worked her way to becoming team captain. Even when the progress to her dream was severely tested her freshman year of college with torn ACL, Jenae worked even harder to a full recovery so she could compete with her teammates out on the field.

Community

Jenae has always been active in her community. Jenae began her lifelong involvement with the disabled community through the San Diego Center for the Blind and she remains active to this day in a variety of fundraising and personal one-on-one participation. She has developed a relationship with a blind man, who prior to losing his vision to diabetes was a college athlete and tennis pro. After losing his vision, he became despondent over his inability to participate in sports. But as the friendship between the two of them grew, Jenae shared her athletic experiences with him, rekindling his passion for sports even though it is now as a spectator. Jenae has always been active on an international level through her work at Zonta, whose mission is to advance the status of women worldwide. She has used her status as a collegiate athlete to help promote sports programs for young women, including playing soccer with the local natives of Peru along the banks of the Amazon River. Jenae has also been active member of the Children’s Environmental Trust and served as an ambassador through People To People. Currently, even with her own collegiate career, Jenae finds time to coach soccer at the local high school, encouraging young women to reach for their own collegiate goals.

Competition

Recently, Gibbens was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America First Team. In 2007 she was named to the Soccer Buzz All-West Region Second Team, the 2007 NSCAA (National Soccer Coaches Association of America) All-West Region Third Team.  Also in 2007, Gibbens was named the Big West Conference Defender of the Year, and All-Big West Conference First-Team Honoree.  IN addition, she received the Big West Conference Player of the Week and Soccer Buzz Elite Team of the Week on Sept. 17, 2007. Jenae has started all 22 matches and ended the 2007 season four goals and two assists to finish tied for fourth on the team in scoring in 2007.