Story by Kurt Miller
An MIAA scoring title.
That's what Emily Kozal achieved in the 2015-16 season, just her second season on the hardwood for the Kalamazoo College women's basketball team.
She set high expectations for the 2016-17 season particularly hoping to add another facet to her game and improve her rebounding ability but her preparation leading into the season wasn't entirely ordinary. In fact, chances are it was vastly different than that of the other top scorers around the league. She wasn't in the gym every day this fall draining jump shot after jump shot heating up from three-point range. Instead she was a world away, in the southern hemisphere, taking in the sights, sounds and culture of Valparaíso, Chile while studying at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.
"I left mid-July and I came back on Thanksgiving, so I was there a little over four months," Kozal said. "I lived with a host-family and was right in the city so that was really cool. I lived like right along the beach almost. It was nice because I got to do a lot of the familial things with them—like sharing family meals and learning a lot about them—but I also had a lot of independence there."
In her free time while not engulfed in her course schedule, Kozal took advantage of the independence. She traveled all over the country, made her way to Argentina and Machu Picchu in Peru and picked up on the unique Spanish dialect spoken by Chileans. Kozal didn't claim to be an "outdoorsy" type before living in Chile, but that changed quickly.
"I wouldn't say I'm like a camper or a hiker but Chile has a ton of that," she said. "There's mountains and then there's a beach right next to them—they have it all. I did a lot of cool outdoorsy things that I never would have done and now I consider myself more of an outdoorsy person. I climbed a volcano—I had an ice pick and everything—and that was intense. I went to Easter Island too which was crazy."
Kozal made it a point to get the full Chilean experience but basketball didn't take a backseat. Knowing Chile wasn't a basketball-crazed country, she and Head Coach Katie Miller planned ahead, deflating a basketball and packing a pump in her suitcase before heading to South America.
"The university I went to had one basketball court and that was one of the few gyms near me," Kozal said. "I would have to work really hard to get gym time because there was only one gym for the giant university—obviously there was lots of stuff going on."
Improvising was key. Kozal only managed to get into the gym and take shots a few times on her trip, but her host brother owned a Jiu Jitsu gym in Valparaiso. She stayed in basketball shape by running, using agility ladders and lifting weights while also working on her ball handling in close quarters.
Training circumstances weren't ideal but Kozal reminded her family members—all three of her siblings play basketball—and teammates before she left to constantly ask what she'd been doing to prepare for the upcoming season.
"I was definitely nervous about it, but I think the transition back has been a lot easier than I anticipated. Coming back from abroad was hard for a lot of people, I'd heard, and it's been weird for me at times but I think the fact that I had basketball to come back to made it that much better."
Missing the first game of the season while still in Chile, the reigning MIAA scoring champion played in the Hornets' second game of the season just two days after returning to the United States. Coming off the bench and playing limited minutes in her first appearance, she got back to her old ways in the Hornets' third game of the season scoring 17 points in the MIAA opener against Adrian.
Kozal knows the time to explore Chile even further will present itself again in the future, but now that she's back in the swing of things in Kalamazoo she's focused on her team and its future.
"It's really important for us to start finding that gel and flow out [on the court]," Kozal said. "We're putting a lot of people out on the court which is awesome but sometimes that's hard because you have so many different talents and skill-sets. Learning how to play with each other is so important and that will really help us out."