Jacquelyn Malm '25 Recruiting Profile

*Comitted!! please stop the emails*

Hi, my name is Jacquelyn but everyone calls me Jacqui. I am a 17 year old senior at Appleton West High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. I have done sports throughout my entire life mostly just trying random things anywhere from ballet as a toddler to volleyball in middle school but none of them ever fit besides karate. I started karate at the age of 4 and it just clicked. Over the past 12 years, I have become a 3rd degree black belt and assistant instructor at The Academy Martial Arts Leadership. Nothing else fit like karate until I started track and more specifically high jump. 

I didn’t have track in middle school due to the Covid Pandemic canceling it after one day so I knew I needed to try it in high school despite not knowing much about the events or what I wanted to do. After the pre-season meeting of my freshman year, I started looking into the different events and though high jump and pole vault both looked fun so I figured I would try them. For pole vault, I enjoyed it and loved the coach but it wasn't the thing for me so I finished out freshman year vaulting with a PR of 6’ but didn’t continue into sophomore year. With high jump it was different, I instantly fell in love with the sport and was pretty really good at it. To make things even better the high jump coach Steph (the reference coach in my info) is fantastic. Since the start of my high jump career, she has been so supportive and positive to the point where every PR has been met with cheers, hugs, and lots of emotion which definitely helped my love for the sport. Freshman year I started off my very first meet making 4’2” getting me first in JV girls for that meet. Two weeks later I made 4’4” at a varsity meet and 4’6” another two weeks later getting 2nd in JV girls. Sophomore year I started my very first indoor meet with a PR of 4’8” and 4’10” outdoors a month later. One skill I learned through martial arts was goal setting which I have applied to high jump with two long-term goals of making it to state one day and beating the school high jump record of 5'7" by the end of my senior year. These heights came from a lot of hard work, dedication, and tons of bruises from landing on the crossbar but it has definitely been worth it so far. Over time, high jump just became my thing. Then I thought triple jump looked fun and decided to learn it in May of 2023 without even considering competing. I immediately loved it and was put in a varsity meet (we only had one other girl triple jumper) getting 30’02”. Then over the 2023-2024 winter, I competed in two open meets at UW-Milwaukee and Indiana Tech where I tried long jump just for fun and ended up getting 13’09” as my farthest of the two meets without any practice and when i told my coach she said I was not a long jumped whether I wanted to be or not. In my junior season, I began having some health issues that interfered with track quite a bit and had me banned from all physical activity for about a month but was then able to get about 4'8" at my remaining meets consistently.

Academics-wise, I work hard to keep up my grades while also keeping a good school, sports, work, and social life balance. I currently have a 3.88 GPA and am 38th in my class of 342 students. My schedule for junior year is filled with many honors and AP classes such as AP Biology and AP American Studies which I will work hard in to maintain my high nearly perfect. 

Thank you in advance and you can find more about my track stats on Athletic.net under Jacqui Malm.