Soccer, Basketball
Favorite athlete: Lionel Messi
Favorite team: Chelsea
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating our rival sister school CB West
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I did karate as a little kid, and one day I completely lost my voice. I was called on to demo in front of the class, and when I managed to make the obligatory “kee-yah!” sound while kicking, I sounded like a goose. I learned to laugh at myself that day…
Music on iPod: I went through a hip-hop phase and then an indie rock/alternative phase but recently my most played is “The Weeknd”
Future plans: Study neuroscience to eventually help better the lives of mentally handicapped people.
Words to live by: “Having regrets is the only regret one should have.”
One goal before turning 30: Make a positive, lasting impact on someone’s life.
One thing people don’t know about me: I played cello for six years.
By Mary Jane Souder
Jessica Chang had exactly one day to enjoy the news that she had been named a captain of her Central Bucks East basketball squad. Less than 24 hours after receiving the good news, the senior guard received word that she would be sidelined for the entire season.
“When we met with our captains, she was kind of hobbling, and I said, ‘What happened?’” East coach Liz Potash said. “She said, ‘We played Quakertown the other day (in soccer). I kind of tweaked my knee, but I don’t think it’s anything bad.’ It turned out to be a torn ACL.”
It was devastating news for Chang, who had bided her time as a reserve but was penciled into this year’s starting lineup. Instead of reacting to the news with anger and bitterness, Chang chose the high road.
“I was looking forward to basketball because I knew it would be my year,” she said. “I finally had my chance, but I try to make the best out of things.”
And make the best out of things is exactly what Chang has done. She arranged her surgery so she would not miss one minute of her team’s basketball season.
“My first question when they told me it was a torn ACL was – will I be able to play basketball this season?” Chang said. “He said, ‘No’ because the recovery time to play sports is nine months.
“I knew I could still be part of the team. I had no doubt that I would still be involved with everything. I knew that my coach would be really supportive of me, and I just knew that it wasn’t everything being on the court. I could lead from the bench or the sidelines.
“Whatever I was doing, I knew my coach would be supportive of me, and the girls on the team would be supportive. I just automatically felt like I could still be a captain the team could rely on and I could still contribute in a way that was meaningful and good for the team.”
Beyond the leadership she brings to the team, Chang just might be the ultimate teammate, enjoying the success of her teammates every bit as much, if not more, than her own.
“She is the most infectiously positive person you have ever met,” Potash said. “She is genuinely a really good teammate.
“You can’t teach people to be the way she is. She is genuine about everything she does. Whether she’s on the floor or off the floor, to her, it’s ‘Let’s get the job done.’ She could not be more all about the team.”
Although Chang is making the best of her role from the sidelines, she’d much prefer to be on the hardwood. Her passion for basketball is unmistakable and was born at a young age during Doylestown Athletic Association’s weekly ‘Skills and Drills’ clinics.
“It would be every Friday for an hour and a half,” she said. “We would do dribbling and shooting, and I think that’s when I realized I just loved the sport.”
It wasn’t long before Chang was playing travel for DAA and then joined the AAU circuit until ninth grade when she began playing for school.
“Since then, it’s been one of my priorities,” Chang said. “The program at East is so great. I have so much respect for all the coaches and everyone who’s involved.”
The script was going according to plan until her soccer team’s late-season game at Quakertown.
“They just got a really nice turf field,” said Chang. “It was shortly after I went in. I guess my foot got stuck on the turf while I was making a move, and I heard this pop.
“It wasn’t painful or anything. It was kind of uncomfortable. I took a step and then sat because I knew something was wrong.”
Initially, Chang believed it was a short-term injury.
“The trainer at Quakertown actually told me he thought I pulled my hamstring,” she said. “When he told me that, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s fine. When basketball starts, I should be fine.’
“I drove home that night. I didn’t think there was anything really that wrong.”
Several days later she had an MRI and received the news that she would be sidelined her entire senior season.
“Obviously, I felt so bad when she tore it,” Potash said. “It’s her senior season and all that kind of stuff, but even when she was talking to me about it, she said, ‘It’s not the worst thing in the world, coach. I’ll be okay.’
“She was just very positive. She’s not missed anything.”
Chang will be missed on the court where Potash admits she had bigger plans for her senior captain.
“I had her starting,” the Patriots’ coach said. “From all the playing we did in the summer – she was playing really well.
“She’s very smart. She knows defense, she gets it. The soccer players tend to get defense better than anyone. She talks a lot to her teammates. She does all the things you would want your players to do.”
A reserve on a young Patriot soccer team this fall that was the district runner-up and advanced to the state semifinals, Chang enjoyed every minute of that experience as well.
“It’s just so incredible to be a part of something like that,” she said. “Just the camaraderie, the spirit and all the hype – it’s amazing. It’s something you’ll always have with you.”
Coming as no surprise, coach Paul Eisold also credited Chang for being a “team player.”
“Jess has a great attitude, very positive, and she is a great role model for the underclassmen,” the Patriots’ coach said. “Jess contributed four years of soccer and was very well liked by the players.”
Chang also excels in the classroom. The treasurer of the National Honor Society, she took five AP classes last year and is taking four more this year. Her list of potential colleges is an impressive one with her top choice UC Berkeley.
“I visited this summer, and I don’t know – I just had this feeling,” she said.
She is considering a neuroscience major with her sights set on a possible career in medicine, an interest that was nurtured during a medical service trip to Belize last December with International Service Learning. She made the trip with her older brother, Chris, and through recommendations received special permission to go on the trip even though she was below the minimum age requirement of 18.
“It was eye opening,” she said of the 10-day trip. “We would set up medical clinics and go to different villages.
“We would walk door to door and see if they needed any help or wanted a check up because they don’t have the kind of services we do. When we went to visit all the villages, it was really impressive – everyone was just so happy, and they were living in – we would call them shacks.”
Chang had an opportunity to get hands on experience, checking the vitals of the children. Team members were taught how to suture and give vaccinations, although they were not able to actually apply what they learned on patients.
“Being with the kids was my favorite part,” she said. “It also was neat to see what it would be like to work with patients and other doctors.”
Music also was an important part of her life – she played both the cello and drums but gave both up.
“The scheduling didn’t fit around my academic schedule,” she said.
Although she has not been able to fit art classes into her packed schedule, she enjoys art and is a member of the National Art Honor Society. In what little spare time she has, Chang is a hostess at Ooka.
With a diverse range of interests, Chang is at home in any situation.
“We had a camp over the summer, and the kids loved being on her team,” Potash said. “She’s just so happy, she’s so positive and she’s fun.
“She’s an awesome kid.”
