Impact Of A Scholarship: Brie Jackson

Brie Jackson always knew she wanted to spend her college years close to her home in Silver Spring, yet the former high school basketball star was indecisive when it came time to choose which school she would attend as a student-athlete.

“Going to college was expected of me, but it was more of a question of which college was I going to go to,” Jackson said.

However, as soon as she stepped onto the campus of the University of Maryland as a high school student, she realized this was the school that she wanted to attend.

“I think the first time I stepped on campus, I just remember the beauty of the campus when Cole [Field House] was still there. They talked about the history of Cole and the program in general, plus going around touching Testudo,” Jackson said.

She also enjoyed hearing the school emphasize that there was a balance between being an athlete and a student. 

“They emphasized that you’re here for sports, but academics come first,” Jackson said.

Jackson graduated from the Bullis School in Potomac in the spring of 1999 and after averaging 13 points and nine rebounds per game during her senior season, she received a scholarship offer from Maryland that ultimately changed the trajectory of her life post-college.

“Being on a full scholarship allowed me to focus on schoolwork, in addition to playing sports,” said Jackson. “With all the commitments I had for basketball, there wasn't a lot of time to have a job to support paying for school and everyday things.

“[A scholarship] allows student-athletes to do their best in school and outside of athletics. Money wasn't a barrier for me in terms of getting my schoolwork done.”

Aside from the financial benefits that Jackson received from her scholarship, she also recognized that having a scholarship helped motivate her to work even harder academically.

“Having the scholarship meant having pride in the work that you did in your sport and in the classroom because you were representing your team and also wanted to be maintaining the high academic standards that the University of Maryland had to stay on scholarship,” said Jackson.

Jackson, who was a forward, has plenty of memories from her time as a college basketball player, both on the court and off the court.

“One of the coolest moments for me was beating Duke, at Duke, during my freshman year and it was just such a big win for us. We were still trying to find our place and our team really came together and played an excellent game and we were able to beat one of the top teams in the country,” Jackson said.

Away from the court, Jackson was able to build lifelong friendships with plenty of other student-athletes during her time at Maryland.

“Being a part of the student-athlete community helps build relationships and some of my closest friends today are people who I met through playing sports at Maryland when I was there, whether they were teammates or athletes in other sports,” Jackson said.

Jackson acknowledged that some of her friends have been paying off student loans for more than a decade, which now makes her realize, more than before, how critical it was to have a scholarship during college.

“When you're in it, you don't realize how beneficial it is to not have debt once you get out of school,” said Jackson. “I still hear from some of my friends who, 15 years later, are still paying loans while I was able to immediately enter the workforce and go into a field I love.

“It was freeing for me to pursue a job I was passionate about rather than focusing on simply salary to repay loans and, while there’s nothing wrong with that, it did allow some flexibility.”

With the freedom from paying student loans, Jackson jumped into a career in broadcast journalism as a reporter, which was a passion she developed during her time at Maryland.

After graduation in 2003, Jackson started as a reporter near Salisbury before moving down to

South Carolina to cover politics, where she even served as a panelist for a congressional debate in the state.

Jackson then moved back north to Roanoke, Virginia, to cover politics and the 2016 election before moving back to Maryland to cover President Trump’s administration.

Jackson credited her time as a student-athlete and her scholarship for helping her cover one of the most unconventional presidential administration’s in American history.

“Having learned time management, grit, hard work, determination, all of those skills learned from being a student-athlete that I didn't realize would pay off a decade later,” said Jackson. “I’m grateful for getting that scholarship and being able to focus on getting a task done instead of having outside distractions and I learned so much more than sports.”.

Aside from being a near-daily presence at the White House, Jackson is also a proud aunt to a set of twins that her sister fostered and subsequently adopted. 

“We’ve learned so much about fostering children in the DMV area and the importance of providing a safe home for people,” Jackson said.

Jackson also still keeps tabs on her alma mater and credits coach Brenda Frese for doing an “amazing job” in building on the foundation that coach Chris Weller helped establish.

“I’m amazed to see how far the team goes and how Brenda catapulted the program into becoming a team that is consistently going deep into the tournament,” said Jackson. “It's always been a well-respected program and I really expect it to continue in the future.”

Jackson had a final message that she wanted to deliver to the donors who helped pay for her scholarship. 

“Scholarships are so important and you don't realize it until you look back at your time at Maryland and you realize how it made things easier, both during college and after college. You're so focused on getting through the day but, looking back, it really helped me continue on into my career without having any barriers.”