Rachel Jennings is in her first year as the Senior Football Academic Support Specialist after a year as the sole Football Academic Support Specialist.
Jennings comes to Missouri Southern after three years at Delaware State University, where she was an Athletic Academic Advisor and Academic Certification Specialist. While there, she worked with a variety of teams, including football, men and women’s basketball, men and women’s track and field/cross country, women’s tennis, women’s golf, and baseball. During her time at Del State, the Hornets regularly topped the MEAC Commissioner’s All-Academic Team which honors students with cumulative GPAs of 3.0 or above.
Before working in collegiate athletics, Jennings was the Director of Academics for Field House 100 Recruiting and Pasefika International Sports Alliance, each a non-profit organization that assists student athletes with scholarship opportunities. Both organizations help secure scholarship opportunities for athletes from American Samoa, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Nigeria, Europe, Canada and parts of the U.S. The organizations have assisted more than 200 student-athletes, including seven National Football League players and three college academic All-Americans.
Jennings was also a high school English teacher at Samoana High School in American Samoa for nearly a decade while working with both non-profits. While at Samoana, she led the territory’s oldest school through the WASC full self-study accreditation process, earning the maximum of six years for the school.
Jennings graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 2007 with a degree in English. She is a native of both Lauli’i, American Samoa and Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
