SUU to Softball Champ and Mom

According to her teammates, Jessica Heineman Tringham spent 2000-2004 keeping the Southern Utah University softball team edgy and cool, and did it with a flair for fashion and style. However, Jess truly became fierce when it was time to don that Thunderbird red uniform and compete for SUU. She walked away with a regular season championship in 2003 and a degree in physical education with a minor in nutrition and food science by 2005.

After graduating from Layton High School in 2000, Jess headed to Cedar City, and the first lesson SUU taught her was achievements are dependent upon the right team of people and she learned that the key to success is surrounding herself with amazing people.

Like many freshmen, early college experiences included some growing pains.

“My first year at SUU was rough,” she says. “I didn’t realize how hard being away from my family and friends was going to be. I also didn’t realize how hard it was being a student-athlete. If it weren’t for the support of my family, SUU teammates and coaches, I might not have made it through.”

Jess did much more than just survive. SUU provided her an environment to truly thrive and begin her quest for adventures outside of the box.

“SUU set me up for success,” she explains. “I believe that going to a smaller school helped me get my feet wet. After graduating from Southern Utah, I attended and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) with a fashion merchandise marketing degree and I would not have been as successful without my previous experience at SUU.”

In 2012, Jess embarked on her next great life experience when she married marrying Thomas Tringham, a US Navy Deep Sea Diver. The couple has been have been married for eight years and we have two children, Millie will be six in June and Tommy who turned four at the end of February.

Jess, along with her sister, founded a clothing company for children. But motherhood and the opportunity for her husband to be stationed overseas gave Jess the chance to focus on her family.

“I currently live in Yokosuka, Japan, and about to head to Oauhu, Hawaii, in April,” Jess explains, “I am a full-time stay-at-home mom. I decided to take step back from working at this time due to the constraints of my husband’s career.”

Through her student-athlete experience at SUU, Jess got a taste of what managing life on the road would be like, but even that does not compare to the military lifestyle. She brings a strong spirit and example to her children who are her best accomplishments.

“I am most proud of my marriage and my two kiddos,” she says. “Marriage and raising a family are hard, now throw in the military lifestyle including deployments, long trips away from each other, and living across the world from family.”

Speaking of family, Jess is still able to keep in touch with some of the members of her support group from her days at SUU.

“I keep in touch with a bunch of pals including my former coach, Laurel Simmons – thanks to social media making it so easy,” Jess says. “My former teammate Dusti Winward Puliz and I actually got married the same year and had our first borns within two weeks of each other.”

Along with her teammates, Jess lists some of her SUU favorites as sports Psychology and kinesiology classes as well as Professor Christopher Topher. She was able to make it back to campus in 2015 for homecoming weekend and an alumni softball game.

The cool and edgy freshmen who first stepped on SUU’s campus in 2000 is still setting trends 19 years later. By overcoming separation from family and immersing herself in the college experience, Jess has been able to seek out many big life adventures including raising two children in Japan.