April 20, 2006

BELLINGHAM, Wash. - Jessica Telleria's resume reads like the voiceover for a NCAA commercial promoting the concept of the "student-athlete."

Telleria has a 3.78 grade point average (4.0 scale), has been accepted to medical school, and also just happens to hold her school's record in the discus. She is looking for her fourth straight league title in the event and a second trip to the Division II National Championships in late May.

Telleria, a senior at Western Washington University, is a standout both in the classroom as a biochemistry major and in the ring as a thrower on the track and field team.

Her transition from academic to athletic excellence is so seamless that she interviewed at Stanford University Medical School and broke her own school record in the discus in the same week this spring.

Telleria, who competes in discus and hammer throw, broke her own school discus record by two feet on April 1 with a mark of 156-2. She has been the Great Northwest Athletic Conference discus champion in each of the last three years, and was the track team's Most Valuable Athlete as a junior. She placed 14th at nationals last year and is a provisional qualifier again this year.

"Athletics are usually an outlet," Telleria said. "But when you get in big meets, people are expecting you to do well, so that carries a lot of pressure. It's good though, as a competitor, because it helps me motivate myself."

She is also a three-time GNAC Academic All-Star, a fact made even more impressive considering the substance of her academic pursuits. Telleria has spent the past three summers completing National Science Foundation internships in Texas, Indiana and Scotland. While her peers served up lattes or painted houses, she researched quantum mechanics and genomics.

Telleria's main research project has been at Western with chemistry professor Dr. Lisa Gentile. Telleria is, in her words, "currently exploring the protein interactions of γ-secretase, an enzyme implicated in early onset familial Alzheimer's disease."

Almost as impressive are her time-management abilities. Telleria has balanced track practice and weight training with lab work and homework, and still somehow managed to find time to eat, sleep and have a social life.

"It's just something I've learned to do over time," she said. "There have been times where I honestly didn't think I could get everything done. There have been nights where I didn't go to sleep because I had to stay up all night doing whatever. Those aren't fun times, but I have to do it every now and again."

The success she has achieved is particularly impressive considering she wasn't always driven - at least not specifically - to practice medicine or be a high-caliber athlete.

In highly unconventional fashion, she took the MCAT, the grueling medical school entrance exam, without being certain she wanted to practice medicine.

"I kind of dragged my feet," she said. "I didn't want to commit to anything."

Telleria, who has already been accepted to her first and second-choice schools, the University of Washington and Stanford, will attend medical school in the fall.

And although she played competed in sports at Capital High School in Boise, Id., she didn't always envision herself as a collegiate athlete until Viking track coach Pee Wee Halsell convinced her that she could compete at the Division II level.

Since joining the Western track team as a freshman in 2003, she has formed a habit of setting and surpassing goals.

"It's always been a personal challenge to me to improve myself," Telleria said. "As my personal goals parallel other standards, then I go for (those standards) ... I would say, `I can do this' and then I'd realize `Oh, the provisional mark is a couple feet further. I can do that.' It's realistic, but I kind of push myself."

In the course of pushing herself, she has occasionally found herself stressed out even when she should be relaxing. While on vacation in Greece last summer, she discovered that her online applications to medical school had not gone through properly - a "huge problem." She spent half a day in an Internet café fixing the problem.

But Telleria never lets the strains of being a scholar-athlete overwhelm her. She credits her coaches, Halsell and assistant Lex Kaligis, with giving her the space to excel academically while still pushing her to improve athletically.

"Usually when I get close to the breaking point, I recognize it and take a step back," she said. "I force myself to relax, to go to the movies or the coffee shop or whatever. If I couldn't do that, I would have crashed and burned a long time ago."