Born on January 27th, 1999 in Mansfield, Ohio, Jared McPeek brings his brilliant soccer talents to Greenville, Illinois. McPeek is a junior, and he is majoring in elementary education at Greenville University. He has been a part of the soccer team since his freshman year, and he has become a very versatile, strategic, and key player for the Panthers. Looking back on what made him want to attend Greenville University, he states, “I came to GU for soccer. At first, I was not going to come because I went to a small high school and wanted to go to a bigger school. However, after I came for an ID soccer camp, I met some of the players on the team, and just being with them for that weekend kind of made me want to come to GU and play with them.”
While explaining how the season looked different due to COVID, he quickly discussed how he had to adjust to having a jam-packed spring schedule due to their season begin moved from fall to spring. Along with this shift, he has to make sure that he is getting his hours in for teaching and maintaining good grades. Being an athlete truly motivates McPeek, and he is always looking to improve and get better. McPeek says, “Greenville University has a lot of international and American students from all over the world, and every single person brings something new to the team, so learning from them really helps me improve my skills as an individual.” Being healthy and in shape for him is very important. Most important to him is the thought of repeating what the Panthers did during his Freshman year, which was winning SLIAC and advancing to the NCAA tournament.
Preparing for this upcoming season, McPeek played for a local soccer team back home and did a lot of running. He also tried to use the fall season, which is usually when they would have their regular season, to go in the weight room and get stronger. In addition to this, when he would go home he had a guy he would work out with. Becoming the best version of himself is the top goal, that is why he pushes himself every single day to get better, and the ultimate goal is to win the SLIAC tournament. In McPeek’s life, he has a couple of important things that mean something to him and those are God, his family, his girlfriend Faith Weinhardt, his dog Striker, his brothers on his soccer team, and his close friends who are not on the soccer team. For McPeek, when he isn’t busy with soccer, he likes to play FIFA, Fortnite, spend time with his friends, or just doing whatever he can to not get bored in Greenville. As the season progresses for the Panthers, McPeek wants to continue to be the ultimate leader for his teammates. Their last opponent was Westminster where they lost to 4-3 but look for better results as they take on Webster University Saturday at 3 P.M.
Media by Paul Garrett.
