The unseen career of a student-athlete

When diver Jozie Meitz came to Colorado State University she was thrilled to start her collegiate career on the streets of Fort Collins. As a visiting senior she fell in love with the beautiful campus and the culture of our swim and dive program.

            At Colorado State being a student athlete embodies more than it might at other programs around the country. The university holds its student athletes to the highest standard, which is embodied by a single word, Stalwart. Being a Stalwart Ram means you know hard work, hustle, grit, and grind. You know what it takes to go the extra mile, to give the extra effort, to persevere in the face of adversity.

            Adversity would sadly end up being a lot of what Jozie faced while at CSU. Injuries and illnesses plagued her ability to stay healthy for a lot of meets that took place while being here.

            Jozie started off her freshman year as a Health and Exercise Science major. In the fall the team is focused on pre-season workouts and a couple preliminary meets before their main season kicks off in January. Jozie sustained a concussion late into her first semester sidelining her for a month right before the season. A head injury in diving can be a very hard mental barrier to break through. After a strong pre-season Jozie was not expecting this obstacle, she would go on to finish her freshmen year excited for a fresh new season.

            Keeping her scholarship was very important to Jozie, being from Minnesota, in state tuition wasn’t a choice. She understood the significance of staying healthy and getting good grades so she can continue to contribute to the athletics department at CSU.  

Picture Credits: CSU Athletics

            Her sophomore year she was able to perform at her best, with a healthy pre-season she was ready to dominate. She was selected to compete in her first Mountain West Championship where she placed 18th in the one-meter event and in the three-meter event she placed 21st. A pretty good end of the season that would be met with some harsh news.

            Without knowing it Jozie had been dealing with a rare heart condition called SVT (Supra-ventricular tachycardia), a fatal disease if severe enough. She had been having these episodes in which her heart rate would skyrocket from around 80 beats per minute up to 200. These episodes started all the way back in September of 2021 and it caused her to be hospitalized during winter break briefly. She ended up finishing the season wearing a heart monitor when she slept, but once season was over, she went to a specialist for some advice. In April of 2022 Jozie had an ablation surgery on her heart to fix the irregular heartbeat she was experiencing. After the surgery Jozie was unable to participate in any activities that would raise her heart rate. Which ended up keeping her out of competitions until October of 2022. Her pre-season was also affected which is maybe the most important part of a college athletes’ season. 

            Remorsefully that isn’t the end of Jozie’s struggle with her own body. After workouts one day she was walking across the IM fields to her apartment when she stepped weird and felt a shooting pain in her hip. Her hip ended up needing surgery that winter due to her ball and socket being displaced paired with a torn labrum. Who knows why or what happened to cause such a severe injury. Surgery that December would however keep her off the board for the rest of the 2022-2023 season.

            So coming onto campus in fall of 2020 as a freshmen and returning to campus in the fall of 2023 as a graduating senior didn’t feel as rewarding as Jozie would have expected as an 18 year old visiting Fort Collins for the first time. That didn’t change the fact that there was season ahead, and they were back to the dryland room for pre-season workouts.

            At this point Jozie has one final season left to prove how good she really is, excited to lead the team as a senior and leave an impact on Colorado State before she departs. In her time at CSU, she has been a student athlete that has carried a 3.5 gpa in health and exercise science along with carrying a part time job when she’s not in competition.

            Now that you have heard Jozie’s story, I ask you to reflect on one of CSU’s cardinal principles, that Stalwart mindset. The idea that you are going to excel in every single thing that you do while holding yourself to a level that most fall from. Jozie’s story is Stalwart. She showed perseverance through her injuries and all her rehab to keep coming back ready to compete every time. While doing all of this she has also held herself to the highest standard in the classroom. I asked her teammate and roommate Braeden Schafer just how she has been able to keep it up, “I never really see Jozie just hanging out on the couch or not putting enough effort into a workout, it’s almost like she is just always 100% focused on her priorities.”

            When I asked Jozie about what it is that keeps those wheels running she said this, “I have a really hard time dealing with stress, so when it comes to school, I do my best to set myself up for success by getting my work done when I have nothing else to do. But when it comes to diving, why wouldn’t I try as hard as I can. I am here on scholarship, and I would never want to risk that, all of the PT time and training to get back to healthy is all a part of the process.”

Picture Credits: CSU Athletics

            Jozie looks forward to graduating this May and hopefully getting her first fully healthy season this year. With those Mountain West Championships circled on the calendar at the end of February, there is a lot of preparation to do in the meantime. But as Jozie reflects on her time at Colorado State, she will never forget those long hours in the training room or the books for that matter.