APART FROM leading the charge down the left wing for the Ateneo Women’s Football Team (AWFT), Jill Panganiban manifests versatility amid adversity as she powered through a myriad of challenges throughout her University life. From enduring a season-ending injury to captaining the team from the confines of Zoom, and navigating through the online school year, Jill remained steadfast in all her pursuits.
The cross over
Even from a young age, Jill exhibited a passion for sports and showed athletic capabilities from the tennis hardcourts to the ballet barre. After trying out 10 different sports, Jill eventually fell in love with fencing and taekwondo during her grade school years. As a taekwondo jin, she attained black belt status and reached the Palarong Pambansa in 2012.
It was also around this time that Jill caught the attention of the head coach of the De La Salle (DLSZ) Grade School Football Team while casually playing football with her friends. Not one to turn down the chance to play sports, she accepted the coach’s invite and was soon competing in three different sports: Football, fencing, and taekwondo. However, upon entering high school, Jill had to choose among one of these sports to continue in. Having reached her goals in taekwondo and fencing, she decided to focus on football and the prospect of earning more accolades in a team sport. As she pursued football in high school, she became the team captain of the DLSZ Women’s Football Team and led her team to the Palarong Pambansa twice in her junior and senior years.
Upon entering college, many of her DLSZ teammates chose to play for De La Salle University (DLSU) in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Seniors’ Division. However, Jill ultimately decided to study in Ateneo as she wanted to pursue the Management Honors program. Consequently, the decision to don the Blue and White forced her out of her comfort zone and pushed her to improve her game, having to build chemistry with a new set of teammates she previously knew as rivals.
Crests and troughs
After establishing good rapport with her teammates, Jill emerged as a key cog in the AWFT’s championship run in the IASAS 2017 football tournament and became the team’s top scorer in Pinas Cup 2017. Given the successful preseason, the winger was looking forward to her first UAAP season with the Lady Eagles. Unfortunately, in a scrimmage against Tuloy sa Don Bosco FC two weeks before her first UAAP match, she collided with an opponent and experienced a familiar pain in her knee. Ultimately, the collision indicated that the winger had suffered her second anterior cruciate ligament tear (ACL) since high school. Not wanting to miss out on her first flight for the Blue and White, Jill opted to test her physical threshold by playing through the injury. “I knew I had the [injury]—it was my decision to keep playing until I couldn’t. The plan was to play the entire season with an ACL tear,” Jill shared.
In her debut match against the University of the Philippines, the winger made it to the starting 11 and played a full 87 minutes despite the unrelenting discomfort in her knee. However, the muscles supporting Jill’s knee had destabilized by the second match of the season, resulting in her inability to walk. The aggravated ACL tear and the receding of her muscles necessitated Jill to undergo surgery to repair the ligament. Because of this, Jill embraced her new task of supporting her teammates from the sidelines.
Aside from being sidelined from football, the injury also hampered the winger’s everyday routine due to strenuous rehabilitation. “I’ve met people who saw me as that girl who’d be walking with ice wrapped on her knee as I was in a hurry to get to class from therapy or back to the gym. It was difficult, but I just really wanted to get back on the field,” she shared.
Having endured eight months of therapy, Jill finally passed her hop test and returned to the field in November 2018. In her first game back, she exhibited adroit link-up plays and scored her comeback goal in the AWFT’s last match in the Philippine Football Federation’s Women’s League.
Come UAAP Season 81, Jill was part of the starting 11 for most of AWFT’s matches and finished the entire season with multiple assists while scoring one goal against DLSU. “From being stripped away of my freshman year to being able to score against my old teammates, it was a full-circle moment,” shared Jill.
In the following year, Jill pursued the JTA program which made playing in the UAAP an uncertainty. However, since the AWFT was short on players, Jill decided to take on the co-captaincy and prepare for UAAP Season 82 while on JTA. To make up for her lack of pre-season game time while managing her academics in the Rennes School of Business in France, Jill regularly worked out at a gym, consistently ran a few kilometers in the streets of Rennes, and constantly checked up on her team for four months.
Although UAAP Season 82 was eventually cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jill remained dedicated to the AWFT as an integral member of the squad. Now a senior, her contribution to the team continues to manifest itself in her role as team captain.
Beyond the pitch
Taking on the responsibility as the AWFT captain, Jill had to lead the team amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Since football relies heavily on camaraderie, training virtually has proven to be difficult. Nevertheless, she maintains her commitment to leading and keeping the team motivated through different team bondings that improve morale.
Apart from her duties to the team, Jill was also active in other co-curricular activities. As a client-relations frontliner for Ateneo Consultants for Development and Empowerment (CODE), she emulates her advocacy of youth empowerment and service by finding clients to avail of CODE’s services, connecting CODEers to clients, and ensuring that engagement processes are being upheld. Despite the organization’s demanding workload and the limitations of the pandemic, Jill’s love for her work makes the perceived hardship enjoyable, ensuring that neither she nor CODE stopped pushing their competencies forward despite the online barriers.
On top of all her CODE and captaincy duties, Jill also performed well as a student despite the rigorous demands of her Management Honors program. Given the program’s challenging professors, tough classes, and high retention requirements, she considers making it through each semester as one big achievement in itself, especially when navigating through the pandemic.
For her final thesis, she and her group created a business called Porter Manille, a bag company that makes use of Tyvek—a material that helps prevent viruses from transferring to different surfaces. Apart from her thesis, she also runs The Shaggy Dough, which materializes her mom’s dream of putting up a bakery.
As with most businesses this past year, the pandemic has presented a challenge for The Shaggy Dough and Porter Manille in terms of selling online. Without events like bazaars, these businesses have experienced a lack of exposure and customer interaction which made it more difficult to sell products. However, in light of these experiences, Jill has learned that nothing comes easy and that it takes hard work to really succeed. “There are gonna be times where it will look like it’s failing really [badly], but you gotta keep going,” she said. Together with her mom and her thesis groupmates, Jill continues to observe the industry trends and evaluate her businesses’ performances, doing whatever it takes to keep growing them regardless of the setbacks that come her way.
A legacy of her own
Although Jill’s collegiate career was cut short, she etched on an equally prolific legacy: Enduring months of physical therapy, fulfilling her duties as co-captain in France, and strengthening her team’s morale through a mere screen. Through these experiences, Jill epitomized resilience in embracing hardships and viewing them as avenues for growth. “I always tell people to love and learn. No matter what setbacks will come along the way, if you just continue to love life and love what you’re doing, it will never feel like a loss,” she asserted.
As she goes down the hill and embarks on a new journey beyond Ateneo, Jill continues to learn and love more with her undaunted spirit—a true woman of the match.
