The following feature on Nanaimo Clippers' forward Brayden Jaw ran in The Province newspaper on Monday, June 21st. Photo credits: Ward Perrin, Pacific News Group
The world's No. 1-ranked place of higher learning is getting a power forward who not only likes to dish out the hits, but also hit the books.
“There are a lot of sacrifices,” admits Brayden Jaw, a five-year man from Vancouver's St. George's School who is prepping for a future at Harvard by playing for the B.C. Hockey League's Nanaimo Clippers.
“My main goal, ever since I was young, was to get the best education possible, to get an Ivy League education.”
Jaw made that dream come true earlier this year by committing, beginning in 2011-12, to the school that the Academic Ranking of World Universities calls the No. 1 academic institution in the world.
It's no easy task to balance the demands of a junior hockey career and the scholarly challenges of a pivotal senior year, when the goal is to make Ivy League grades. But as far as the 6-foot-1, 192-pound Jaw saw things, the best way to do it was to basically finish his Grade 12 year in Grade 11.
So he did.
When the hockey season started and Jaw moved to Nanaimo for his first year of Junior A, he found himself with a lighter course load at nearby Wellington Secondary, where he scored 99 per cent in his classes from September to March.
He's finishing up at St. George's as a 90 per cent-plus student.
“When I went for my interviews at Harvard, they asked me how I was going to deal with my skip year,” Jaw says of next season, when he will play hockey again in Nanaimo while taking a few college classes. “I told them that St. George's trains you every single week. They battle test you. So I feel like I am ready.”
To view Howard Tsumura's feature on Brayden Jaw on The Province's website, click HERE.
