Former Stanford Football team member and Track and Field team member Jake Koffman shares some of his favorite memories from ACE in Vietnam 2018. Koffman also offers gratitude towards ACE for stoking his passion for coaching and teaching as well as providing him with time for meaningful reflection.
What are you doing now? How did ACE influence your personal goals or career pathway?
I currently work at a cryptocurrency startup as a software engineer. ACE did not directly influence this decision; however, long term I have dreams of being a coach and/or teacher, passions which were developed and stoked during my time with ACE.
Can you share one memory from your ACE experience that changed how you think about something?
More than anything else, the memory that shines brightest in my memory is of a monsoon rainstorm. During one afternoon, the skies absolutely opened up; I’d never experienced rain like this before. Yet the air was warm and the we embraced the rain with open arms and whoops.
Everyone – supervisors, teachers, students – were outside frolicking and splashing and sharing in the joy and wonder of nature. I have no deep meanings to extract from this. It was simply a special experience with special people; to attempt to encapsulate it with any abstraction would do it a disservice.
Describe your ACE experience in as few words as possible:
Phantasmagorical
How did ACE impact you as a student-athlete?
ACE gave me an opportunity to deviate from my typical lifestyle, a break that allowed me to reflect on what I valued and why.