One could see her virtually walking out of BHS Gymnasium and into Grand Junction-based Colorado Mesa University's Brownson Arena without missing a step.
Noting an interest in pursuing nursing, Jade Pascale calmly retraced a well-known, crutch-aided route to Bayfield High School's athletic training room, in which she's spent about as much time as an intern as a college-motivated recovering patient.
"They have a phenomenal nursing program, and they just invested a bunch of money into it, bought brand-new equipment, so I'm super excited," Pascale said after confirming her desire to attend CMU. "That was a big thing too, not just the volleyball aspect of it, but the actual education." She signed with the school on Wednesday, Nov. 8.
That thinking and determination didn't deter CMS Coach Dave Fleming from watching the Wolverine senior and adding another in-state standout to his roster at CMU.
"I was terrified when it first happened; I was like, 'Oh my gosh, he's going to tell me I can't play for them,'" said Pascale, recalling her season-ending knee injury suffered at the Lewis-Palmer Invitational during BHS' third overall match in 2017. "First thing that popped into my mind - I was like, 'I'm not playing college volleyball anymore!'"
"But I called him after it happened, explained everything that happened, and told him that I'd work super-hard to get back as fast as I could," she continued, referring to Fleming. "He knows that I can and trusts in me that I can get back; that was super-cool of him to just not give up on me."
"You cannot control injuries and we won't pull an offer because of one," Fleming said Monday afternoon. "We know Jade is working hard and will come back stronger than before the injury."
Bayfield's current and former coaches agreed their player's drive will serve her well in NCAA Division II.
"Her dedication - I don't know a lot of girls that work harder than Jade," current head coach Danica Frost said. "She was so valuable to have on the bench. I would have preferred to have her on the court, but she really was like an assistant coach. She knows the game, can see things, so it was good to have her on the bench."
"She's fierce, unapologetically competitive," stated previous boss Terene Foutz, herself a former player at and alumna of then-Mesa State College. "She is unafraid and uninhibited in the clutch, and if the score is tied I want Jade to get the ball."
"If I had to pick a spot today where Jade would help us, I would say outside hitter," said Fleming. "One reason we like her is she can do so many things; it'll be fun trying to figure out where she is going to help the most."
"Even though it sucks pretty bad," Pascale said, referring to missing nearly all of her senior season, "it was definitely a huge learning experience for me. I learned a lot about the sport of volleyball, how to deal with certain things with the team. You learn so much from watching the game, notice all the little-bitty things, and you try and tell them what to do. Then you realize, 'Oh! I was probably doing the same thing when I was playing!' You pick up on so many things."
"Jade's worked really hard to get to this level of her volleyball play, and this is the culmination of that," father Casey Pascale said, with mother Corinne alongside. "Signing a Letter of Intent to get to go play in college, it's something that she worked really hard for. It's just an exciting day for us as a whole."
Which had to be even more special when considering volleyball was not Jade's main interest growing up.
"I think I started playing in, like, fourth grade, and I really didn't like it because I did gymnastics throughout my whole life until, like, eighth grade," she said. "And so I never, fell in love with volleyball until my sophomore year. I really started to grow as an athlete, I upped my volleyball I.Q. by a bunch, so that's when I figured out I really loved the sport and could see myself going and playing at a higher level."
Foutz had sensed Pascale's potential a year earlier.
"The way she was competing with a very senior-loaded group her freshman year, she.and I had this banter: 'Are you varsity or are you a freshman?'" she recalled. "She made that decision consciously and trained that way, developed that way, put in time in the offseason. o once she did that, her pace was her own and it was a privilege to watch."
"I would definitely not be the volleyball player I am without Terene; she worked with me all the time," Pascale said. "Every very day after school - for two or three hours - I would go work on blocking footwork, on anything I could do to make me a better player. Everything I really needed at that time, Terene gave to me."
Standing 17-9 overall and 11-7 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play at the end of the 2017 regular season, began begin RMAC Tournament work Tuesday, Nov. 14, with a quarterfinal contest at Metro State University-Denver (19-7, 16-2).
"CMU is an easy sell if we can get student-athletes on campus," Fleming stated. "All the facilities are amazing and we have a very competitive athletic department."
"I visited a couple RMAC schools, and it was fun," said Pascale. "But for some reason, at Mesa, I connected with the girls automatically."
"I talked to Kelton (McCoy) about it, and Sam (Westbrook)," she continued, mentioning two former BHS student-athletes now at Colorado Mesa, "and a couple other people that go there. Everyone says they love it, how everything is great, so I'm super-excited. I've only heard good things about it up there."
