The Penn State men's track and field team has already made trips to northern California and Virginia, and with trips remaining to Alabama, Tennessee and Los Angeles, the Nittany Lions will be very busy over the next few weeks.

With the hectic schedule, it could be easy for an athlete to get caught up in the competition all over the United States. However, triple jumper Clarence Smith is one student-athlete who knows how to balance his time.

Smith started off his outdoor campaign last week with a regional-qualifying jump of 49-feet, 4.5 inches in the Stanford Invitational. While he has aspirations of reaching the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Smith keeps in perspective why he is in college in the first place. After all, he is on an academic scholarship -- not an athletic scholarship.

"There is God in my life, and then there is school right behind it," Smith said. "School is very, very big, and that's why it's also hard for this outdoor season; we're traveling a lot."

His good academic standing, combined with his personal conduct on and off the track, won him the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award in 2006 as a freshman.

"It made my dad really happy, and that was the thing that made me happy," Smith said. "It also made me happy, because a lot of times you think stuff goes unnoticed, but to see that someone notices you and appreciates you, it means a lot, too."

The honor gave Smith a new outlook on his role with the team. He has since felt obligated to be more of a leader this season.

Penn State jumpers coach Fritz Spence has seen Smith make strides this year as a leader and a jumper.

"He is a likeable guy, a great student-athlete, a leader academically and athletically," Spence said. "He gets along with fellow teammates great, both the men and women."

Smith started 2007 doing both the triple jump and the long jump, but near the end of the indoor season, he decided to focus solely on the triple jump.

The decision has paid off as his personal best for both indoor and outdoor competition came at the most important time this year. In the Big Ten Indoor Championships, Smith had a leap of 50-10.75, good enough for third place in the competition.

When Smith came up short of the 50-foot mark last week, he was a little disappointed, but he was still relieved he had reached the regional qualifying mark early in the season.

"My freshman year, I came within an inch-and-a-half of making it [to regionals], but I didn't make it at all throughout the season," Smith said. "I didn't jump as good as I wanted to [at Stanford]. But, all in all, I was very, very happy to make regionals because I have never been there before, and I'm looking forward to it."

Smith's ultimate goal is to reach the NCAA Outdoor Championships. He believes it would take a jump of at least 52 feet to get there, a height he and Spence think he could reach by the end of the season.

When the regional championships finally roll around at the end of May, Smith and the rest of Penn State will have been out of school for two weeks. So until then, Smith will have enough time to practice to try and reach his goal of 52 feet.

Smith is just hoping to have enough free time through the next month to meet his own academic goals.

He has to maintain a grade point average above a 3.0, and while he's well above that number, he still feels the pressure.

"I'm always putting a lot of studying in," Smith said. "When I'm not here [at the track], I'm studying."