When Jennifer Hughes isn’t coaching a nationally ranked women’s collegiate soccer team, she’s a student at the UConn Law School on schedule to graduate May 23, 2010.

Hughes, a native of Minoa, N.Y., has the distinction of having had her soccer uniform number retired and being inducted into the Hall of Honor at her undergraduate alma mater, Colgate University. This followed a brilliant career as a mid-fielder, in which she was an All America, team captain, and the leading scorer in school history.

After graduation, she worked on Wall Street for nearly two years as a financial analyst. She then played professional soccer in Sweden for a team called Tyreso in that country’s most competitive women’s league, while also working for a Swedish investment bank.

“When I returned to the States, I decided I wanted to pursue a career in sport and thought I’d try coaching,” she says. “I was able to get a position as assistant coach at Colgate, and that’s when I realized I wanted to have a career that would involve both soccer and business/finance.”

Hughes found a master’s program that suited her needs at the University of Massachusetts, where she completed a dual degree program that combined a master’s in sport management and an MBA. “When I started at UMass, I had visions of becoming a sport finance professor,” she says.

However, a course in sport law intrigued her. “The professor who taught the course is very well known in the field of sport law and I had an opportunity to become his graduate assistant. My classroom experience, coupled with my work as a GA, prompted me to think about law school. With a JD, I would be qualified to practice in the area of sport law, and also to teach sport law.”

By this time, she was in her second year as head coach of the women’s soccer team at Amherst College. “When I was ready to apply to law schools, UConn was particularly appealing because I was able to fit my course work in with my coaching responsibilities,” she says.

Despite her hectic schedule, Hughes recently received an award in computer assisted legal instruction, which signifies that she received the highest grade in her seminar on law and interpretation. She did this in part by reaching out to leading authorities on the linguistics of trademark protections. This project generated so much interest that it has been incorporated into the syllabus for next year’s seminar students.

As far as the future is concerned, Hughes says, “I am passionate about coaching, so I will definitely continue to coach after law school. My team at Amherst was ranked number five nationally in 2008. My goal is to win a national title, and I genuinely believe we have a shot [at this] in 2010.”

With her JD, Hughes says she would like to take on more administrative responsibilities in the athletic department at Amherst and perhaps eventually practice law in some capacity: “I have a particular interest in the area of sport law. I was a legal extern with the Boston Breakers of Women’s Professional Soccer and had the opportunity to work directly with General Counsel for the team. It was a wonderful and motivating experience, and I can truly envision myself as General Counsel for a team or a league someday.

She also plans to take the Massachusetts Bar exam in February: “I guess we’ll see what happens after that.”