Soon to be Wolverine: Jessica Mruzik
Mruzik’s USA National Team won a gold medal and qualified for the World Championships in Honduras last September. This summer, they will be going to Italy for a week and Egypt for two weeks for the 2019 World Championships. Photo used with permission from Jessica Mruzik
From the time she was a middle schooler, junior Jessica Mzurik had the goal of being a University of Michigan Wolverine. She dreamed of spiking the ball on the U-M volleyball court and walking through the Ann Arbor campus. Mruzik would constantly ask herself, would this dream ever come true? After spending more hours in the gym than the average person could ever imagine, Mruzik committed to play volleyball at U-M her freshman year.
“There was a point in my life when volleyball became pretty much my life,” said Mruzik.
Mruzik continues to work out, practice or play volleyball six days out of the week. Along with having a jam-packed schedule, Mruzik faced a setback when she switched from her former team to Legacy Volleyball Club two years ago. She remembers the switch being difficult because she was ultimately judged for leaving her old team and playing for another, which was hard for her to go through.
“There was a lot of blow-back and shade thrown at me and some other girls [throughout] the whole season last year,” said Mruzik.
After the switch, however, Mruzik and her new team have been very successful.
“It’s all about working hard, being coachable, and putting everything you have into this sport,” said Mruzik.
Mruzik says she is thankful for her family because she’s aware of how much they have sacrificed to get her to where she is today. Mruzik is planning to graduate early. She will be missing the second semester of her senior years, but she says she could not be happier with this decision. She will be the first Mercy student to take this path. She knows she will miss her friends.
“I’ll still be able to come back for Moving Up and Prom and all that,” she said.
Mruzik will never forget the progress in volleyball she made at Mercy and the new people she met. She learned to balance school and volleyball, which helped her learn how to manage time and prepare for college.
“After talking to a lot of athletes there,” said Mruzik. “They have told me that [U of M] has so many resources to use it makes it hard to not succeed.”