When people comment on just how hard it can be to balance a full-time job with every day life, Dayle Jeras usually has them beat.
After all, how many people try to juggle full-time academics while working four days a week and, to top it all off, training full-time to play the highest level of women’s university soccer?
But that is exactly what the 22-year-old from Langley has had on her plate these past few months.
Jeras is set to graduate in April from the University of the Fraser Valley with her degree in business and finance.
And Jeras has excelled both on the pitch — she started for the UFV Cascades women’s soccer team since her sophomore season and has worn the captain’s armband the past two seasons — as well as in the classroom.
For the second consecutive year, Jeras earned Canadian Interuniversity Sport academic all-Canadian honours for 2014/15. To do so, a student-athlete must achieve an average of 80 per cent or higher in their classes, while also competing in a CIS sport.
Jeras had a 3.55 grade point average for that time period.
The academic all-Canadian awards are announced the following year, so she will find out next November if she earned the award for her fifth year as well.
Jeras said her grades improved in her third year, once she settled on her major.
“I have always cared about school; I have wanted to do well in a career and soccer was an avenue that has taken me there,” she said.
This past year — in addition to her soccer — Jeras also began working at a TD Canada branch in Abbotsford.
Coming out of high school — Jeras is a 2011 Brookswood Secondary graduate — she had considered going to the U.S. to play soccer.
“UFV was the option I could do both,” she said.
She also credits soccer for her success in the classroom.
“(Soccer) gives you structure and a big support system,” she explained.
“You have people looking out for you all the time. When you have a set soccer schedule and having those people around you on and off the field, who want you to succeed, it really helps.
“You know help is always there,” Jeras said, adding she is not sure if regular students have that support network.
And Jeras was successful not just in her academics, but on the field as well as the starting centre-back.
Cascades coach Rob Giesbrecht said it was fantastic to see Jeras develop as a leader, both on and off the field.
“She (did) a fantastic job of looking out for her teammates and having their backs,” he said.
Jeras eligibility came to an end this fall with the Cascades losing in the Canada West playoffs.
But she has nothing but good memories over her five seasons with the team.
“It is something that you can’t really match. Devoting five years to one thing, it is something that is very unique and rewarding,” she said.
“Watching the team develop over the past five years, it has been really fun to be a part of that.”
