How Unioto’s Jozie Zickafoose chose to be a light in the darkest time of her life

Derrick Webb, Staff Writer

Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.

CHILLICOTHE — In the waning hours of the night, Jozie Zickafoose laid in her bed with tears streaming down her cheeks.

She had shown strength. She had shown perseverance. She had shown resilience. 

But that night, with her mind running a race it couldn’t win and a set of walls around her that seemed to be closing in, she couldn’t help but break down.

Countless hours of rehab, an immeasurable amount of pain, and endless battle with her own psyche .. all of it, at that moment in time, seemed all for naught.

“During the day, when I was around people, it was really easy to put on a smile,” Jozie said. “But at night, I’d be trying to sleep and I’ve got this big, bulky brace on. You have to move your whole body to turn. It aches and you have to take medication. So I’d be up so late, sitting there not being able to sleep. I’d get super frustrated and that would build up, and I’d think, ‘I can’t walk. I can’t run. I can’t go up the stairs. I can’t do anything.’”

Her frustration turned to tears. 

“There were two nights with each injury where I would just sob. I was just sobbing by myself. I usually tried to never do that in front of my family or friends. I didn’t want people to think that this had brought me down. I was positive and I was optimistic. I wanted to give others those things, especially when I’d see others be injured and needing a teammate or support. I couldn’t feel bad for myself so much as to where I’d bring others down.”

So, to save her friends and family the burden of seeing her in an emotional state, Unioto’s senior four-sport athlete let her frustrations, her insecurities and her tears build up until she could pour them out on four separate occasions.

And that was it. Four nights in an entire year’s time. 

Every other second of every other day, she proudly wore a genuine smile on her face because she knew she could be a light for those in darkness.

But to get to that point, she had to walk through her own personal hell — a journey that started on April 11, 2023 with a long jump that changed her life.

“We were at Waverly and I had just won the hurdles, actually,” Jozie said. “I had already jumped twice in the long jump and I was in the middle of my third jump. Everything felt normal. I hit the sand and I guess my knee went one way and my leg went another. I felt a pop and I heard it. It hurt but it wasn’t overbearing. I definitely didn’t think my ACL had just torn. I even asked how my jump had gone.”

It was indeed a full tear of Jozie’s right anterior cruciate ligament, effectively ending her junior track and softball seasons.

It was a definite blow. But it wasn’t the end all, be all. Jozie, like she always has, went to work.

“I’ve learned that I’m a different type of tough,” she said. “When it happened, my dad asked me, ‘What are you made of?’ I thought about that and thought about how hard I’d want my teammates to work to get back if it had happened to them. So that’s the effort I put into doing it.”

Throughout the next four months, Jozie worked herself to exhaustion — both mentally and physically. Pain, flashes of relief here and there, more pain, exhaustion. It was a cycle that became her day-to-day life. 

But when her senior year began, she had been cleared to resume athletic activities.

The long, lonesome hours had all paid off.  And then, like a thief in the night, her joy was taken. 

Exactly 132 days since her first ACL tear, on Aug. 21, 2023, tragedy reared its ugly head once again. 

The same leg. The same diagnosis.

“I got to play in my first game of the soccer season and I had begged my coaches to play. I played a great deal and I was fine,” Jozie said. “The second game came and my surgeon had recommended I work out at AP Prep to help my knee. I had tweaked it there and the doctor had just thought it was something minor,” she said. “But I guess, looking back on it now, my knee was already weak. I got into the game and a girl kind of pushed me a little and my knee planted. Again, it went one way and the leg went another. That time, it felt so different. It slowly hurt more and more. But I kept thinking, ‘There’s no way this is a second time.’ We went back to the doctor, got an MRI, and he came in and told me I had done it again.”

Her heart was, quite literally, in pieces.

“I’m generally a very motivated person. I’m stubborn but I like to get things done,” Jozie said. “That second tear was one of the closest times I’ve been to saying, ‘I don’t want to go back out there.’ It wasn’t because I didn’t love the sports I played. It was one of those things that just made me feel weak. I had worked so hard. I did all of the therapy and I was back in four months, which is an insane amount of time to rehab. Everyone had told me how proud they were of me. So it was almost like I failed them all. I was stuck, again, watching others doing what I wanted to do.”

After four months of constants with one goal in mind, she had hit her mark. And then, in the blink of an eye, she was right back to square one.

“I don’t wish this on anybody,” Jozie said. “I’d rather this happen to me than anybody else. I say that whole-heartedly, even after having it happen twice. But sometimes, you can’t help but to think, ‘Why me?’ or ‘Why again?’ I really did work so hard to get back to where I was. So when you have all of that progress stripped from you … it was almost embarrassing in a way.”

For a very brief moment, Jozie had second thoughts on completing another lengthy rehab process. 

But that moment came and went. And when it was gone, her go-getter personality had made a valiant return. 

It was, once again, time to get back to work. 

“It was like, ‘What if I do all this again and it will be another waste?’ I got out of that mindset pretty quickly,” she said. “I don’t like to stay down. So pretty soon, it was, ‘I did it once. I can do it again.’ I came to terms with that and focused on getting back for this track season.”

Jozie’s first rehab stint took four months. Her next would span a little longer. 

This time, however, some of the same demons she faced, she’d seen before. It wasn’t new and she knew the path that was in front of her … one that led to another jubilant return.

It did, however, have similarities.

It certainly wasn’t an easy path to follow, it had the same dips and valleys, and the pain was always present.

But what some people have trouble doing once, Jozie did twice — in a year’s time. But that couldn’t have happened without her loved ones’ support.

After all, when her heart broke, so did theirs.

“I think they may underestimate how much their support meant,” Jozie said of her family. “That’s not just giving me things and getting me to where I needed to be, but also just helping me move at my own pace. They did that even if they were scared. I’m sure it was scary for them because I’m their daughter. I could see how much it bothered them to see me not being able to do what I did before. So it was such a gift for them to be able to let me push myself. I definitely think that helped me get back as soon as I could.”

Jozie’s incredible resolve shined through the cracks once again.

She returned to the track on May 1, competing in the long jump, the 100-meter hurdles and 200 hurdles.

Unsurprisingly, she finished second, first and fourth in those events.

“It felt great,” she said. “When I got back and ran hurdles for the first time, I won the event. I came off the track sobbing like, ‘I’m still good at something.’ It was kind of a joke but it was also how I felt. It’s different now. I’m not where I used to be. So to come back and have something be normal and something I can look at and say, ‘I’m helping my team by doing this,’ it felt amazing.” 

All the while, even while sidelined, she was there throughout her senior year for her soccer, basketball and softball teams.

She wasn’t on the field but she was their biggest supporter. After all, she was just returning the favor. 

“Injuries aren’t forever,” she said. “They hurt. They suck. I can confirm that. But they only last as long as you’re willing to let them control your life. You can take those first steps to overcome them. You have to give everything you’ve got to get back and not let it be the thing that defeats you. You can learn a lot from them as well. If I can get through what I went through, anyone else can, too.”

Jozie has learned how she handles adversity, how to stand tall in the face of tragedy and the importance of being a stand-up teammate.

The bottom line? When life dragged her down, she refused to surrender.

Now, she’s back to normal — or a “new” normal as she says.

“Looking back on it, it’s kind of like, ‘Go me.’ I appreciate how I kept going and kept fighting to get back. Sometimes, I wish I had been more positive and more patient. But for everybody, sometimes you just need to cry it out. Those nights, I was just so angry. So I let it out. Then I gave it to God. He’s God. He knows what to do with it better than I do.”

Jozie’s next adventure in life will be at a university. She hasn’t decided which college she’ll attend but she does know that she wants to major in Clinical Psychology with a minor in Forensic Psychology.

It’s a degree that most students earn in an eight-year time period. But Jozie isn’t like most students. She wants to graduate before eight years pass.

She hasn’t ruled out an athletic career at the next level, either. As of now, she’s exploring scholarship opportunities and talking to multiple collegiate track coaches.

But one thing is for sure: no matter what, Jozie Zickafoose will persevere. She always has and she always will.

And if there’s another injury, whatever that may be, in her future, it doesn’t stand a chance.

“If [injuries] happen, they happen. But I won’t dwell on them,” she said. “It didn’t keep me down the first time, it didn’t keep me down the second time. And if there’s a third time, it won’t keep me down that time, either.”

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