Jessica Sasso of Sayreville looks nothing like a Taekwondo champion.
She looks just like the average 12-year-old girl.
“She’s just a skinny girl, pretty and feminine. She doesn’t look intimidating,” said Scott Sasso, Jessica’s dad. “Not until she puts the uniform on and someone tries to attack her. People in her school know and they don’t try to attack her in the hallways or on the bus.”
Once she puts that white uniform on, Sasso becomes a fierce, aggressive, dominant competitor.
She attacks her opponents like a honey badger, as soon as the match starts. Her matches look a lot like Mike Tyson heavyweight boxing matches from the late 1980s.
Sasso races toward her reeling opponent and knocks her down with a blinding array of kicks. Seconds later, the official is raising Sasso’s arm after yet another victory.
This is exactly how Sasso’s matches went in the American Taekwondo Association Northeast District Championship in May of 2017.
Sasso was 11 at the time of that tournament in Lancaster, Pa.
She competed in the 11-12 division against standouts from all 14 northeastern states, from Maine down to Virginia over to Ohio.
Sasso beat her first opponent in 45 seconds.
“The girl was in tears,” Scott Sasso said. “She couldn’t do squat.”
It set the tone for the rest of the tournament. Competitors have to score five points to win a match in the ATA district championships. Sasso beat five opponents by a combined score of 25-3.
“She was able to beat everyone without breaking a sweat,” said Anthony Rodriguez, Sasso’s instructor at Parlin ATA Martial Arts in Sayreville.
In the championship, Sasso faced a taller opponent.
“That girl’s parents were like, ‘You got this.’ Jess heard that. I did, too. She was like, ‘You ain’t got this,’” Scott Sasso said. “Jess caught her with a round kick under the right arm under the rib cage. My daughter prefers her right leg to kick but that day she used her left leg.”
“It’s more efficient to attack people. So a lot of times that’s what I like to do,” Jessica Sasso said. “I don’t like to dance around and wait for someone to do a move. I like to go in and try to score points.”
The district championship was the crowning achievement of Sasso’s Taekwondo career, until January 2018, when she earned a black belt, the highest honor for a martial artist.
To earn the belt, she had to complete 300 moves in 5:00. The maximum score is 11, but a seven will pass. Sasso earned an 11.
“If you nail everything, you get a 10. Eleven is the extra point they add if you nail the fit test, 50 sit-ups, 30 push-ups, then into the techniques,” Scott Sasso said. “I’m hugging her after and she said, ‘I knew I passed but I didn’t think I got that.’”
Sasso started training at Parlin ATA when she was 10. Surprisingly, she was not a natural.
“She was with everyone else,” Rodriguez said. “And then she sprouted up five inches and got crazy strong.”
The growth spurt combined with Sasso’s mind to build her into a champion.
Sasso, Rodriguez said, is able to pick up new concepts, “In an hour, maybe 30 minutes.” Then she applies them relentlessly, deliberately, in practice every day.
“She’s able to memorize it and then physicalize it, and do it the way it’s supposed to look, almost perfect. It’s rare,” Rodriguez said. “In this school we have about 240 members. I could probably count three or four of them with the same amount of work ethic that Jessica has.”
After earning her black belt, Sasso wanted to try something new for a season. In the spring, she went out for the Sayreville Middle School track team and made it as a sprinter, the only sixth grader chosen for sprinting.
Sasso did not necessarily set out to be sprinter. She attended every day of tryouts because it would give her the best chance to make the team in some capacity.
“You don’t have to go to every day because each day is different, sprinting, distance, shot-put,” Sasso said. “I went for everything so I could make one thing.”
Sasso ran in the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints and lowered her time in each event, by two seconds, over the course of the season. Her coach, Amy Gioia, also cajoled her into running the 400-meter sprint.
“She said, ‘I can’t believe coach made me do it. I hate that,’” Scott Sasso said, laughing. “But now she wants to get better at it. That’s her attitude. She wants to get better.”
“Sprinting was really fun,” Jessica Sasso said. “I’d like to do it again in seventh grade.”
She also plans on continuing with Taekwondo. And Rodriguez thinks she can become a national champion.
But as the track season proved, Sasso is a lot more than just a mixed martial artist. She has made the school honor roll in 20 straight semesters. She has told her dad that she wants to attend Princeton University in the future.
“Kids her age aren’t thinking of that. I told her, ‘You’re not even in high school yet. Go be a kid,’” Scott Sasso said. “But that’s what’s great about her.”
