Published: June 28, 2008 09:47 pm      

MSU graduate KIAC Female Athlete of the Year

Role model.

Complete package.

More than just an athlete.

Those are some of the simple ways to describe Jennifer Sloan.

Make no mistake, though, there is nothing simple about the two-sport standout who recently graduated from Mountain State University with honors.

For her senior season, Sloan garnered just about every award possible in both volleyball and softball.

“You just can’t ask for a whole lot more,” MSU head volleyball and softball coach Tim Berry said. “Jennifer is what successful people are made of. She has the drive, the ambition and the willingness to give that little extra to be the best.”

As the school year came to an end, Sloan received her most prestigious awards. She was named as an NAIA honorable mention All-American and as the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Female Athlete of the Year.

“That was surprising,” Sloan said. “I really didn’t expect that at all. It’s just a big honor. It just feels like your hard work has paid off. It was just a very big honor.”

Those awards came after she was named KIAC volleyball player of the year and KIAC softball player of the year.

Sloan, though, has taken it all in stride.

“(You have to be) dedicated,” she said. “It takes a lot of hard work. I love both sports, volleyball and softball. I’m passionate about both. I’m passionate about my teammates and working hard for them and Coach B.”

In just her senior year, she garnered several athletic awards.

In volleyball, Sloan was named KIAC libero of the week nine times, player of the week four times, Region 12 libero of the week seven times and NAIA National Player of the Week twice. She was named to the all-KIAC team and all-Region 12 team, besides being named Region 12 libero of the year. The Mount Hope native also broke three NAIA national volleyball records, most digs in a season (1,434), most digs per game (9.37) and matches with 20-plus digs (37).

In softball, Sloan was KIAC player of the week two times and Region 12 player of the week two times. She was an all-conference and all-Region 12 catcher as well as all-Region 12 player of the year and a Dakstats All-American Scholar Athlete.

Sloan never envisioned her career reaching the heights that it has.

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “Not at all. I just figured I’d be another student-athlete. I really didn’t plan for any of this to happen or any of these honors to come, but I’m thankful and appreciative of everything that happened this year.”

Now there is only one honor remaining for her at MSU. Both her volleyball and softball numbers will be retired by the university.

“I think she has received about every honor you could get as a volleyball and softball player,” Berry said. “As my way of honoring her for all her years of service and topping anything that any female has been able to do at MSU, I’m going to retire her volleyball jersey, No. 16, and her softball jersey, No. 34. There will be a banner that will hang in the gym in tribute to her work for MSU female athletes.”

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Not just an athlete, Sloan was one of the top graduates in the diagnostic medical sonography program with a 3.85 grade-point average.

“I had the highest GPA in my class, me and another girl actually,” she said. “I graduated magna cum laude.”

Time management was a big thing for Sloan, balancing studies with sports.

“She was always studying on the road,” Berry said. “We’d be at the motel on road trips. She would be in her room reading or studying.

“She’s the complete package. She is a role model for any and all young players to go by.”

“School comes first,” Sloan said. “If I don’t have school, I can’t play ball.”

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Even with all the awards and honors she has earned, Sloan still takes the time to give back and to try to advance women’s athletics for the next group of young women coming up, not just at Mountain State University or Woodrow Wilson High School, but everywhere she can.

“I love teaching,” she said. “I love to take what I know and pass it on to somebody else. If I know that I can help somebody in bringing up upcoming girls that may be in junior high or high school, whatever it may be. I just like to pass on anything that I know and that I know can help in any type of skill or drill. Confidence too. Just any type of thing that can reinforce what I think women should be as athletes.”

That was evident the day she was interviewed. Sloan spent the day in Charleston working on her clinicals, returned to Beckley and spent the evening working with Greater Beckley Christian’s volleyball team during their summer workouts before swinging by the newspaper office after a very long day.

“I just helped out the coach with some passing and stuff like that,” Sloan said. “Then, I worked with some girls hitting and things of that nature.

“I like to teach. I am passionate about both sports. I don’t want to quit any time soon, by any means.”

Berry echoed her passion for passing along her knowledge to future athletes.

“She is not only a good ball player but she’s a clinician,” he said. “In all four years that she was here in volleyball and softball, she worked our camps and did a lot of work in the off-season. She worked with several local high school players, teaching them how to slap bunt and how to drag from the left side of the plate. She taught them all about base running — how to slide a slide. In volleyball, she taught back row players how to position, and how to dig up a volleyball.”

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Sloan first became interested in sports at a young age.

“I’ve played ever since I was 5,” she said. “I’ve just always loved being active. Meeting all these people, especially in college, and forming a bond — just forming a bond with everyone that I was on the team with and my coaches — I just love it and everything about it.”

Despite standing only 5-foot-5, Sloan excelled in any athletic endeavor she took up.

“I’ve been at MSU since 1997 and Jennifer Sloan is without a doubt the best female athlete I’ve ever coached here,” Berry said. “She came up through the Raleigh County school system, played midget league football, was a back row specialist for Woodrow Wilson and was on a state championship team there.”

It was a bit of ill-fortune though, that brought Sloan to Mountain State University.

“She’s went through a lot of adversity,” Berry said. “In her senior year, she lost her twin brother Joe to a drowning accident. She still had a great senior year.”

The shocking death of her brother put Sloan on the path of staying close to home to help her family deal with the loss, instead of going to school away from Beckley.

Berry remembered the day he found out she was coming to MSU as a second Christmas.

“I went to the North-South volleyball game that year,” he said. “I was going to talk to her but I figured she had been recruited. She was standing on the corner (of the court) and I remember walking over and asking her, ‘Jennifer, what are your plans for college?’ She turned around and looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I want to come to MSU and play for you.’ That was a happy day. It really was.”

Sloan noted that it wasn’t Tim Berry recruiting her, it was Sloan recruiting MSU and Berry.

“I’ve known him ever since I was like 12,” she said with a laugh. “I really didn’t know if he was going to ask me or anything like that. I just figured I could stay at home.”

From her first day at MSU, it was evident that there was something special about Sloan and her athletic ability

“From the first day that Jennifer walked onto the volleyball court or the softball field, she gave 150 percent,” Berry said. “She was the consummate team player. She was always working to better herself. She worked just as hard in the classroom. She graduated tops in her class. That speaks just a little about her ambition and her willingness to get the job done, on and off the field.”

For Sloan, there are no regrets or what-ifs.

“I’m glad that I stayed home and represented Beckley, where I grew up,” she said. “I stayed home close to my family. Everything that happened my senior year of high school had a lot to do with me staying home. I needed to be here for my family, and like I said, I’m glad that I’ve done so well there. I’m really appreciative of everybody that I played with and Coach ‘B’ as a coach. I couldn’t have done it without any of them.”

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Now that her playing days are over, Sloan is proud of the achievements she piled up her senior year.

“I knew that I would never get to play either one again and that’s just something that breaks my heart,” she said. “But, I love it. I just wanted to have a good last year and a good remembrance of everything.”

And which sport was her favorite?

“I love them both pretty equally,” Sloan said. “I like whichever one is in season. I don’t favor one over the other.”

On the field or the court, Sloan was in charge. She was the general on the field or the court at catcher and libero, respectively.

“You have to learn how to take charge and be confident in your decisions,” Sloan said. “You have to learn how to speak up and be able to step up and work well with your team.”

Now she is preparing for the next step in her life.

“As far as getting a job, I don’t know yet,” Sloan said. “It depends on if I’m going to stay around the state or if I’m going to move. I’m not sure.”

Sloan would like to work in the vascular field, studying the heart and blood vessels.

“Eventually, I’d like to go back to school and get my master’s (degree) or maybe go into a different field,” she said. “I don’t know yet.”

Wherever the road takes her, Sloan will continue to be role model for young girls everywhere to follow.

— E-mail: rjett@register-herald.com