Soccer
Favorite athlete: Fernando Torres - soccer player for Spain and Chelsea. I also enjoy watching LeSean McCoy who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles!
Favorite team: I enjoy watching Philadelphia soccer, football baseball and ice hockey! I also enjoy watching the US girls' soccer team - the inspire me!
Favorite memory competing in sports: Having my parents at my games and supporting/encouraging me. There is nothing like having the people you love the most watching the game you love the most.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One time playing soccer in high school, an opponent was being physical, maybe too physical...considering she ripped my shorts down! Haha!
Music on iPod: I listen to almost everything...but I am a country girl. I enjoy country music very much. One song that pumps me up is "Fighter" by Gym Class Heroes...I play it on repeat before soccer games!
Future plans: I plan on attending college, preferably close to home, to become a neo-natal nurse!
Words to live by: "An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. When like is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it's going to launch you into something great. So just focus, and keep aiming."
One goal before turning 30: Travel to a less fortunate country and provide them with whatever they need and my love!
One thing people don't know about me: My family calls me Jenny Penny!
By Mary Jane Souder
Jenna Joseph understands the importance of being a team player.
Unlike many of her peers, the Quakertown senior developed an understanding of the value of teamwork outside of the athletic arena – as the third youngest in a family of 12 children.
“I just love it,” Joseph said of being part of a large family. “I’m not used to being with only one of us. It’s even hard to be with only six of us now because I’m so used to having 12 in the house.”
If you’re counting, the Joseph family had a soccer team with one reserve under their own roof.
“All of us played soccer at one point in time,” Joseph said. “We used to go and play in the field for fun. We were definitely all competitive.
“At the point when it became a little more serious, my parents were fine with them quitting if they wanted to.”
For her part, Joseph never wanted to quit. As a matter of fact, soccer is her passion, and she has been playing since she was five years old, beginning at the intramural level and advancing on to the club circuit.
Joseph tried her hand at track and took dancing lessons until she was in sixth grade, but nothing could compete with soccer.
“It’s the only sport I actually stuck with,” she said. “I wasn’t too talented at dance, so I figured I would stick with soccer.”
Coach Michael Koch is glad she did.
“I think she’s as good of a 1 v. 1 defender as you could find anywhere,” he said of his senior left back. “That’s definitely her strength.
“She’s also very good at winning the ball and playing it to good areas after she wins the ball. She’s very athletic, and she just has a great sense of timing of when to tackle the ball. She doesn’t commit too early, and she doesn’t delay too long, which is what happens with some players. She has good soccer instincts – where to play the ball.”
Joseph is willing to sacrifice for a sport she loves, and when she isn’t on the soccer field, she can be found serving ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.
“She definitely does sacrifice,” Koch said. “Long before the season started, she e-mailed me and said, ‘I need the game schedule so I can schedule my work schedule around it.’
“We were in a summer league up in Lehigh, and she made almost all of the games.”
According to Joseph, juggling work and soccer has been relatively easy.
“Both soccer and Cold Stone are really comfortable with each other,” she said. “I’ll leave practice 15 minutes early, and work is fine if I show up a little bit late.
“Summer league was once a week, so I could still work pretty much every day. I’m definitely used to it.”
Joseph, it turns out, had to grow up in a hurry when her father, Steve Joseph, lost his battle with cancer in June of 2012.
“He’s the one that got me started in soccer and always watched my games and always made me want to do better,” she said. “That’s when I stopped playing for Bucks Mont (United). He was always my ride, and it was hard because it wasn’t close to home.”
Through it all, Joseph continued to attend all of her team’s practices.
“She’s definitely had to overcome some difficulties that may have knocked other kids down,” Koch said. “She has had a lot to overcome, yet she continues to strive for excellence.”
As difficult as it was to lose one of her biggest supporters, Joseph didn’t go through the experience alone.
“It’s a lot easier to go through when you have 12 people there for you instead of having one sibling,” she said. “We are really close, and even though some of (my brothers and sisters) don’t live with us, they still stop at the house after work. We see them every day.”
Three of those siblings meet Joseph every day after school on the soccer field. Younger sister Samantha is a sophomore on the squad and older siblings Kayla and Melinda are assistant coaches.
“They definitely don’t take it any easier on me, but I like it,” Jenna said of being coached by her sisters.
In the classroom, Joseph, who has a course load of honors and one AP class, takes her academics seriously.
“I’m not taking easy classes,” she said. “It’s hard. It’s not like it comes easy, but I can’t let myself get a bad grade. I will get so mad at myself.
“Even when I didn’t have a job and it was just soccer and school, it was tough, but I get it all done.”
Joseph hopes to continue her soccer career at the collegiate level and has visited East Stroudsburg, DeSales and Moravian. She plans to major in nursing with her sights set on a possible career as a neonatal nurse.
“Just having a big family – I love kids, especially babies,” Joseph said.
For now, Joseph is focused on her final high school soccer season where she will be counted on to assume a leadership role as a senior captain.
“She’s a leader by example,” Koch said. “She’s also a leader because she embraces the younger players. Sometimes upperclassmen aren’t as willing to do that, but she embraces the younger players.
“She does the little things. At the end of practice, I’ll turn around, and even as a senior captain, she’s the one picking up water bottles that were left and whatever.”
For Joseph, it’s all part of being a team player, something she has been both on and off the soccer field.
