Douglas senior Angela Nelson has always been just a little bit ahead of the curve.
She'll graduate high school Friday at 16 years old with a 4.2 GPA and in a couple of months she'll be shipping across the country to Elmira College in upstate New York, where she'll play ice hockey for the Golden Eagles.
The jump to college athletics is usually pretty steep, and making it a year ahead of the norm (she'll be 17 when she steps on campus at Elmira) would add a little more pressure for most.
Add to it that Elmira is the sixth-ranked academic school in the North and has one of the top NCAA Division III hockey programs in the country and you start to get the idea.
Yet, Nelson hardly even blinks.
"It worries me a little (making the jump to college athletics)," she said. "But mostly I'm just looking forward to meeting my teammates there and learning from them."
For the past two years, Nelson has been bouncing around the country with the San Jose Junior Sharks tournament team hoping to draw some attention from the next level.
"I'm wasn't quite good enough for the college coaches to contact me," said Nelson, who said she was only contacted outright by a handful of schools. "Mostly, I had to contact the schools I was interested in and see if they would come out and see me play."
Working primarily as a defender, she wasn't able to present many concrete statistics like goals and assists. Instead she had to prove herself on the ice.
The breakthrough came during a pair of showcase tournaments on the East Coast last fall.
After a strong showing at a Labor Day weekend tournament in Vermont, she heard from Union College and then Elmira came to watch her at the Polar Bear Tournament in Connecticut.
"That was always kind of a nerve-wracking experience, because you're out there and you're not sure who is watching you or even who saw what, like if you had a good play or a bad play," she said. "Elmira wasn't too far away from the Connecticut tournnament, so they came and they showed some interest."
The school quickly rose to the top of Nelson's list, and in turn, she was awarded a $72,000 academic scholarship to attend.
She also won the school's $2,000 Roy E. Smith Memorial Scholarship, which was awarded for outstanding character and promise.
"They were my No. 1 school coming in, I was pretty happy when I got the letter that I was accepted," Nelson said. "A big part of why I applied there was a chance to play hockey with them."
Now it'll just be a matter of finding her spot within the program. Elmira has won five ECAC West championships and two NCAA titles in the last seven years.
She said she would be surprised to make the varsity squad her first year out. Still, she'll see playing time either way as Elmira has an established junior varsity program.
"It's my first year, so I'm not sure how much playing time I'd get at the varsity level," she said. "Either way, I'll get to play."
The idea of taking on a full load of college-level classes while competing in a sport is nothing new for Nelson.
She spent the last two years juggling a slate of advanced placement classes with her intense travel schedule anyway.
"It'll be an adjustment, that's for sure," she said. "But in a lot of ways it'll be easier. I won't have to do as much traveling school year, so that'll be nice."
With the Junior Sharks, she played in tournaments in Arizona, Chicago, Detroit, Vermont, Connecticut, Canada and Colorado this year alone.
"My weeks during the season are pretty normal," she said. "I go to school, come home and do homework. Sometimes I'll go up to the South Tahoe ice rink to practice with the boys team. But overall it's pretty average."
But then on the weekends ...
"I'll have a practice Saturday morning and maybe a game that night," she said.
"Practice again Sunday morning, and then another game. Then we come home and I try to get my homework done. Tournament weekends are even busier. There just aren't many days off during the season.
"I love it, but it does get to be a bit of a grind by the end of the year."
Nelson got her start in the now-defunct ball hockey league at Meneley Elementary School, making her the third former athlete from there to move on to college hockey.
Lauren Martin (St. Catherine's) and Amanda Essary (Lindenwood) made the jump previously. Essary's Lindenwood squad won the ACHA national title this past season.
Nelson later began playing with the co-ed High Sierra Wild at Lake Tahoe but when it came time to bump up an age division, her parents decided to shift her over to women's hockey with the Junior Sharks.
"It's a little different style of play with the girls," she said. "Some parts are actually faster because there is no hitting. It's not terribly different overall."
As far as leaving home for a school across the country, Nelson is excited at the prospect.
"I've known since I was little that I wanted to leave Nevada for college," she said. "I have a few close friends (she noted Alicia Dreyer and Shark teammate Devyn Hotho, both of whom she's known since elementary school) that will be really tough to leave. But it's not like I'm gone forever, I'll still get to come home for Christmas and things like that."
And after college?
"After college is tough," she said. "There isn't much for women in hockey after college. We'll just have to see how it goes."
Nelson said she plans to major in either psychology or international business, although she hasn't decided on a possible career yet.
