Posted 9/22/2009 5:20:40 AM by Jim Cole
News from Marissa Malsen - Staff Writer viewed 1169 times
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - Dayton, OH
Skills learned in circus training will greatly enhance your abilitys in sports.
Junior Learned To Perform As Rolla-rolla Girl At Circus Camp When YoungerMarissa Malson - Staff Writer September 21, 2009 Junior forward Jerica DeWolfe was not worried about playing in front of big crowds when she came to Dayton. She already had already done a much more daunting performance.
When she was 13-years-old, DeWolfe became the Rolla-Rolla girl for a summer circus show.
"I went to a camp where they had a program there," DeWolfe said. "It was basically a tryout so if you performed well at different skills, like balancing, you were chosen to do part of a show in the circus so I qualified."
DeWolfe went to several different overnight camps for two months every summer. In addition to circus camp, she went to sail boating and soccer camp.
"My parents had picked it for me; I didn't even really realize that that was an option there," DeWolfe said. "It's just something that I did every summer; it was just an extra little plus that it happened to be a circus type of camp."
However, DeWolfe's circus career did not take off like she hoped it would.
"We actually - and this is disappointing - only did one show for a bunch of guests and our parents," she said. "My act specifically was the Rolla-Rolla girl. I had this frilly little outfit with tassels and it was pink and black. I did it with one of the instructors; he was balancing while I was doing flips off of him. It was exciting, but nerve racking."
DeWolfe may have been a Rolla-Rolla girl for a summer, but she has always been a soccer player. She started playing when she was four, and her mom, a former college player, was also her coach.
"She was my coach for about six years which was sometimes good and sometimes really bad," she said. "I got kicked out of practice often."
DeWolfe knew from a very young age that she wanted to continue playing soccer at the university level.
"I just never stopped [playing]," she said. "I had to give up other sports but it was well worth it. I'd say that [playing in college] was ingrained in my head from very young. It just seemed like the next step; it was natural, I guess. It was just kind of an expectation I had."
Circus camp was able to contribute to DeWolfe playing at the collegiate level. She learned the discipline she needed to prepare her for her time as a college athlete.
"It definitely gave me an appreciation of [the circus life]," she said. "It required a lot of discipline. I did have to go take myself away from my cabin-mates and everything and go to practice once or twice a day. So, I guess that prepared me for the things I was required [to do] when I started to get competitive with soccer."
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