Field Hockey, Lacrosse
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating CB South in field hockey my junior year (ending their perfect league season)
Funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: A freshman walked up next to me while we were scrimmaging on the turf during practice and casually told me she had put a huge worm on my shoulder—which she had!
Future plans/goal before turning 30: Attend Amherst College, play lacrosse and find a career path that I’m passionate about.
One thing people don’t know about me: I don’t have any cousins.
By Mary Jane Souder
Jacq Fitzgerald is not your run-of-the-mill student-athlete.
On one hand, coach Tara Schmucker describes the Central Bucks West senior as an intimidating presence whose ‘physicality and overall presence’ caught her eye the moment Fitzgerald stepped onto the lacrosse field as a freshman.
In the next breath, the Bucks’ coach talks about her senior captain’s smarts on and off the lacrosse field.
“Jacq is extremely analytical – a different personality but certainly one that you want on the team,” Schmucker said. “She is super focused, always very to the point, but then she’s also very witty as well.
“She’s just a great personality to have on the team in terms of that. She excels at everything she does.”
Fitzgerald brought similar traits to the hockey field.
“She’s so smart and analyzes everything,” West coach Courtney Hughes said. “She’s intense and tough, and she leads by example. She kept me on my toes.”
Ranked in the top two percent of her graduating class, Fitzgerald – a four-year varsity player in both hockey and lacrosse - is the total package.
“She was a very intimidating presence because of her strength and her speed,” Schmucker said. “She has great field vision, and she knows where she needs to be at all times.
“I think her biggest asset, especially for us this year, was she could play anywhere.”
A starter since she walked onto the field as a freshman, Fitzgerald never looked the part of rookie.
“She’s never played like a freshman, and even talking to her, she’s never seemed young,” Schmucker said. “She’s mature beyond her years. I think the basic thing was she could hold her own on the field. I was never worried about that, and she backed that up with a great knowledge of the game as well as a consistency with her stick skills. She’s just a very versatile player at both ends of the field.”
It would have been easy for Fitzgerald to consider colleges based on what they offered her as an athlete. That didn’t happen.
“I have always loved playing sports, but I’ve sort of looked at it – if I could use sports to get into a better school than I could otherwise, I was going to do that,” Fitzgerald said. “If field hockey had been able to do that for me, I may have considered playing field hockey in college, but I really decided probably in middle school that if I was going to play in college it was going to be lacrosse.”
Fitzgerald began playing club lacrosse in the offseason, spending three summers with Bucks Select and the past two with Ultimate, but when it came time to apply to colleges, lacrosse was a secondary consideration.
“My parents always told me to pursue the school that was the highest academics I could get into,” she said. “So they never really pushed me to get scholarships or anything.
“I picked five to seven schools that I wanted to go to just based on academics. I went down the list.”
Amherst, which was within that academic pool, also afforded Fitzgerald the opportunity to play lacrosse. It was the best of both worlds.
“She was very smart in how she approached recruiting,” Schmucker said. “A lot of girls go lacrosse first, and for Jacqueline, it was academics first. She found a school that was the best fit for that and then added lacrosse to the mix.”
Sports have been a family affair for Fitzgerald, who began playing hockey for DAA when she was in kindergarten. Her dad was the coach of her team.
“Obviously, he’d never played field hockey before, but my dad has always been extremely involved in my sports since I started playing,” said Fitzgerald, who began playing lacrosse in first grade. “My dad wasn’t the coach for that team, but he was my coach for middle school.
“He’s certified all three levels. He coaches both of my siblings right now in boys and girls lacrosse. He has such a passion for the game. We’re always talking about it. We watch women’s lacrosse games together. He has purchased coaching videos, he’s travelled to D.C. to get certified. He has such dedication, and you don’t see that from a lot of dads, especially with their daughter’s sports, so I’m grateful for that.”
Fitzgerald added swimming to her repertoire, but lacrosse and field hockey have always been at the forefront.
“The reason my dad had me and my sister play field hockey and lacrosse was because he knew that – as opposed to sports like soccer and basketball – we’d have a much better chance of getting on the field in high school,” Fitzgerald said. “My dad played soccer, football and basketball. He went to Dartmouth – he was recruited to play football there, and after two years, he quit football and played rugby for Dartmouth.
“I like to believe I would have played sports regardless of my parents’ motivation, but it’s really their signing me up for things and driving me to practice and encouraging me to do those sports that really allowed me to keep playing. I’ve always enjoyed playing them. They would never force me to continue playing sports if I didn’t want to.”
Fitzgerald has been part of an amazing upswing in both the field hockey and lacrosse programs at West.
“In field hockey, we definitely weren’t as strong when I started as a freshman, but we were still probably a stronger program than the lacrosse program was at that time,” she said. “I have been fortunate because I was there last year for probably one of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had and that was beating (Central Bucks) South for the first time. I remember in field hockey playing South and just getting destroyed year after year, and finally winning was just such an empowering feeling.
“I was there for so many of those pivotal moments, like beating South, and we went to states my sophomore year, which was an enormous accomplishment even though I might not have realized it at the time – just seeing how elated my seniors were.”
Fitzgerald – a captain as a senior – anchored the hockey team’s defense at center back.
“She always wanted to improve, and that was something that was true from her sophomore year on,” Hughes said. “She was always at every offseason extra practice and ready and in shape to go.
“What made her good was her intensity and desire to succeed. Nobody could push her around.”
On the lacrosse field, Fitzgerald – a two-year captain - was part of a senior class that led the charge to a share of the program’s first conference championship since 2001. The all-league midfielder contributed both offensively and defensively.
“I’m well aware that when coach Schmucker took over the program it was struggling with only a handful of wins,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s entirely her motivation and hard work.
“It’s really unbelievable how quickly the program has grown in the past few years under her. It’s been special. I remember year after year losing to Hatboro and North Penn and Souderton. I had never beaten North Penn or Hatboro until this year. It was really a great year for upsets and some new beginnings.”
Off the field, Fitzgerald is a member of the National Honor Society, and she also was a member of the Spanish Honor Society and Key Club for two years as well as the Girl Up club for one year.
When it comes to a major, Fitzgerald says she has no idea.
“That’s one of the reasons I chose Amherst,” she said. “Amherst was one of the two schools I looked at that had no course requirements.
“Very few schools in the country actually have that, so pretty much – as long as I take the correct amount of credits, I can take any course I want to take. I plan on not taking any math classes, not taking any sciences classes. It’s really nice because you’re spending your money in a very concentrated area. I’m looking at the humanities – political science, law, history. I’m really excited about that.”
Ask Fitzgerald to name those who have influenced her along the way, and she doesn’t hesitate.
“Both my parents have motivated me,” she said of Lise and Kevin Fitzgerald. “My dad’s always been the more athletic role model. He’s been a huge impact on my life, and just that constant drive to both make him proud and also compare to him in some way motivates me.
“Obviously, coach Schmucker has been an enormous role model for me. Making her feel proud of me and the team is just something that constantly motivates me. Her work ethic is unbelievable, and her dedication to the team is just unfathomable.”
The recipient of a Suburban One Scholarship and the West Hall of Fame Scholarship, Fitzgerald has found a way to balance athletics and academics.
“They’re really my top two priorities,” she said. “I love exercising, and I exercise anyway even if I’m not playing sports.
“There’s never really been a conflict for me, but if it came down to it, academics come first.”
