In the Spotlight
By P.J. Slinger
Jeff Dessner would make a good case study for anyone studying the nature vs. nurture argument.
Is Dessner, the All-American senior defenseman for the University of Wisconsin, a hockey player because of his upbringing? Or is it because of an inborn trait or desire?
His mother insists it's the latter.
Prior to Jeff's birth, his parents, Dr. Stuart and Rita Dessner, moved from Queens, New York, to Glenview, Ill., a northern suburb of Chicago. It just so happened that their new home was only minutes from the local ice arena.
"We thought it would be a good place to meet people and get the kids involved in something," Rita Dessner said. "It was very close and it was a good outlet for them."
So at the urging of their parents, Jeff and his older brother Eric began playing hockey.
That's the nurture argument. Here's the nature argument.
"There was never such a passion as there was for hockey," Rita Dessner said. "Once they had tasted it, that was it."
It's not as if Jeff Dessner didn't have any other athletic options.
Growing up, he played soccer, baseball, la crosse ("that's where I learned I didn't like running," he said) and basketball.
Asked if Jeff would have been a soccer player had they grown up next to a soccer field instead of a hockey rink, she said no.
"The kids did play (other sports), but their love was always hockey," she said. "They couldn't get enough of it."
And Jeff showed a knack for the sport early on. As a bantam, he was captain of the team that won the AAA national championship.
But with all that talent came some tough decisions. As Jeff entered his high school years, he knew his goal was to play college hockey. He didn't think remaining in his Chicago-area environment would help further that cause. So he requested that his parents let him attend a prep school out East to hone his hockey skills.
"The turning point in my life was when I had to decide if I wanted to stay in Chicago to develop or go out East," he said. "My family was super supportive of my decision to go to prep school and I think it was the best decision we made. My mom had a tough time, but we knew it was either stay at home or go follow your goals and dreams."
So he enrolled in Taft School in Watertown, Conn. During his two-year stay there, he was named to the All-New England team and was Hockey Night in Boston's Best Defenseman in 1994-95.
"Taft was so awesome - great place, great coach, it was a perfect fit for me," he said.
His mother agreed.
"Looking back on it, it was the right move in absolutely every way," she said "It was a very good decision for him, but I was very hard for me. He was my little baby."
Then came the decision of which college to attend. But this one was much easier.
"As soon as I came here (to Madison), I knew this was the place for me," Dessner said. "It was only a two-hour drive from my parents and I knew if I could make it at a big university, I could make it anywhere. Wisconsin was the first place I visited, and I immediately cancelled all of my other visits. The facility, the people, the university. What more could I want?"
Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer said Dessner was a recruit candidate even before he went out East.
"We knew about him coming up from Team Illinois," he said. "And we saw him play out at the prep school, so that's when we started to get going on (recruiting) him."
Despite going to a place that Dessner called "perfect," he admittedly said his first two years at Wisconsin were difficult. He had a herniated disk in his back that required surgery, so he sat out as a medical redshirt his first year in Madison. But the surgery wasn't entirely successful, so Dessner went back under the knife a second time. He wasn't cleared to play until eight weeks into the next season.
"My first two years were long,' he said. "The healing process took forever. So then I was in and out of the line-up. But my sophomore year I was in better shape and felt I fit in better. And last year I had a good year."
A good year? It would be hard to top his junior season, where Dessner, 6-foot-2, 195 pounds, led the WCHA in plus-minus with an incredible plus-46 and was the league's top goal-scoring defenseman with nine. And the individual awards he garnered last season would be the envy of almost any collegiate hockey player: First Team All-American, First Team All-WCHA and WCHA Defensive Player of the Year. He also went to Norway with the WCHA All-Star Team this past August, helping them to a 3-0-0 record against elite-level Norwegian teams.
In his career at UW, Dessner has 23 goals and 38 assists for 61 points. This season, through the first 14 games, he has four goals and five assists.
"He was a forward growing up, and having a converted forward was something we were looking for," Sauer said. "We knew he'd be offensive-minded."
But Sauer wasn't the only one looking at Dessner in high school. He made a good enough of an impression that the New York Rangers selected him in the seventh round of the 1996 draft. After this season, Dessner hopes to make the leap to the pros where he would be happy even playing for the Rangers' minor league affiliate.
Dessner, a right-hander who shoots left-handed, said it wasn't nature that taught him to shoot that way.
"When I was young there was a garage sale down the street and all they had were lefty sticks," he said. "So that's what my dad bought us. That's why I'm a lefty."
Previous Features
Nov. 27 - Jeff Dessner
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