Tracy Lozier: Adjusting to College Life
1/22/2001 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 22, 2001
By Amy Fiscus
Athletic Media Relations Student Assistant
Spend some time on the University of Missouri campus and watch tradition unfold. Students stop chatter as they walk under the Memorial Union archway to pay their respects to war veterans. Others walk around Francis Quadrangle instead of cutting across the grass in reverence to that facility.
Eventually, however, a few students will start a pick-up game of Frisbee on the quad, and others will pluck four-leaf clovers near Engineering East without being doomed to marry one of the discipline's students. Not every tradition is adhered to all the time, and not every Missouri Tiger fits the mold of a traditional student.
To put freshman Tracy Lozier into the traditional category would be difficult. Though she is from Kansas City-the real one, none of that Johnson County business, thank you very much-she attended high school at Blue Valley North in Kansas City, Kansas. There she led the Mustangs to back-to-back Class 6A state titles her sophomore and junior years, along with fellow Tiger Wannette Smith. "It was the first time it had been done in school history, we were the underdogs. We beat a team that hadn't lost yet," Lozier explains of the sophomore year victor.
Lozier also bucked the family tradition by attending MU. Her older brother is a junior at Kansas, but there is none of the usual family animosity. "A lot of people from my high school went to KU so that was a change for me," said Lozier. Though the home school was in pursuit of the best player in the Kansas City metro area, she chose to come to MU for the comfort it offered. "I really liked the players and coaches when I visited," said Lozier. "They fit my style the best and the whole campus atmosphere was great."
Basketball is also something Lozier picked up along the way, always willing to try something new. "I just played soccer when I was little, until fourth or fifth grade," she said. "I never really wanted to play basketball when I started but I ended up liking it more. I still also like soccer because of the contact," she added. Lozier continued her soccer career at Blue Valley North and was also a four-year honor student in high school. Despite her academic success in high school, the freshman finds college to be, not surprisingly, different from before. "It's weird because you don't have much homework, your entire grade is based on a test," she explains.
Lozier passed most high school basketball tests with flying colors. At Blue Valley North, she won the DiRenna award in 2000, given annually to the best girl's basketball player in the metro Kansas City area, after leading her team to a state runner-up finish. She was also named honorable mention All-America by Street & Smith and was twice a first-team all-state selection. College basketball has also been somewhat of an adjustment for the 5'11" freshman. "The competition is tougher, the other girls are faster and smarter than the other teams in high school," Lozier said. However, she has found role models in her early days at Missouri. "I definitely look up to the older girls, especially the seniors and their leadership," says Lozier of her new teammates.
Despite all the changes, this new atmosphere doesn't faze Lozier. She has contributed in the pre-season and will continue to be an integral part of Missouri women's basketball in the years to come.
