Jessica Ledyard - Class of 2011
Soccer, Tennis and Basketball Player Jessica Ledyard Weighs in on Sports and School Culture
Junior Jessica Ledyard currently plays two doubles tennis with Abbey MacAllister. Prior to joining the University tennis team in her sophomore year, she had only played recreationally with her family. Because tennis is not her best game, Ledyard knows, first hand, the value of this school's inclusive athletic program. While she knows she is good enough to have played basketball and soccer most anywhere, being on the tennis team at University was a benefit of the school's inclusive athletic philosophy.
Ledyard transferred to University for the beginning of her sophomore year from Hobart High School, where she had played basketball and soccer. One of her coaches called her his "most intellectual and ‘coachable' athlete." "Hobart was a lot more competitive because it was bigger," Ledyard says. "I had to work a lot harder to get a position on a team." Ledyard is a fierce competitor, but she has never regretted the transition to University. She knows that the no-cuts policy is right for the school. One thing that makes it work, she feels, is that the school does a really good job of finding coaches who work well with the culture of the program and the school. "Coaches at Hobart were good too," Ledyard says, "but there's just more of a community feel here."
A career opportunity for her physician mother brought the family to Carmel. Ledyard looked at University, Brebeuf and International, ultimately opting for University for the academic rigor and the community atmosphere. One of the things she most likes about University, particularly in comparison to her previous high school, is the diversity and inclusiveness. Transitioning to University was easy for Ledyard, who is a straight-A student and a quiet, but friendly young woman. She plans to go into pre-med/biology, but hasn't a clue where that will be yet. As a junior, the thing she is most looking forward to in her senior year is the college search and selection process.
Ledyard selected the New Yorker Magazine January Term class for her first year at University, "a highly focused humanities course," as Mrs. Webster recalls. Knowing that Ledyard leaned pretty heavily math and science (she was one of the only freshmen allowed to take honors Algebra II at Hobart, and the only one to earn an A), " Mrs. Webster was pleasantly surprised by her choice. "Jessica took every advantage of the course and the city," Mrs. Webster remembers. "She conducted herself like a seasoned and adventuresome traveler!" That could be because she was an experienced traveler. She was nine years old, in third grade, when her parents did volunteer work in Kenya. Jessica was homeschooled in a small town on Lake Victoria, a really poor village dependent upon the medical clinic in which her parents worked. Ledyard learned to appreciate all that she has and wants to go back to that village one day.
Making it to the regionals in basketball has been the highlight of Ledyard's athletic experience at University so far, although she also loved participating in the soccer sectionals. Next year, the college search process may bring her biggest moments, though. As Nancy Webster often tells her, "Get ready, Leddy!"