Jocz’s parents dropped him off on 

an August Sunday in 2012. By Tuesday, 
he wasn’t sure if he would last. He was 
struggling and exhausted, and another 
walk-on tight end had already quit.

In times like those, Jocz often calls 

his parents to talk through them, and 
this time he told them he wasn’t sure 
if he’d make it. Warren Jocz recalls 
Michael relaying a similar sentiment 
from Smith, who was in his fourth fall 
camp. “I just want to call home and tell 
Mom I quit,” Smith had told Jocz in an 
ice bath after practice.

“It was huge going forward, because 

it helped me know that obviously I 
wasn’t alone, and that everyone was 
going through that, so I could make it 
through,” Jocz said.

Jocz broke things down: First he’d 

make it through the first week. Then 
the next. Then the duration of camp. 
Then the first game. Finally, he ran 
out to midfield at Michigan Stadium, 
touched the banner and thought: “I’m 
going to do everything I can to do this 
for the next five years.”

Over time, Jocz took enough small 

steps to see where he was going in the 
end, though it took a while. He spent 
his first two years almost exclusively 
on scout team, going up against the 
starters, doing the hardest of work and 
receiving no recognition.

As he worked on the scout punt-

block team, he presented a problem: 
He kept blocking punts. In drills 
intended to give the starters practice 
covering the kick, Jocz wouldn’t let 
it get that far. He once showed his 
mother a bruise on his arm from the 
impact of the ball.

Mary-Ann Jocz made her son a 

prediction: “One of these days, you are 
going to block a punt in a game, and it’s 
going to change the whole game.” Just 
like in that ice bath, Jocz wasn’t sure 
things would ever work out.

But he kept at it, eventually earning 

himself game reps on special teams. 
On Sept. 17, in the third game of Jocz’s 
fifth year, the Wolverines faced their 
first adversity of the season. Down 
14-0 against Colorado early in the 
first quarter, they sent out Jocz and 
the punt-block team to try to shift the 
momentum.

As four Michigan players broke 

through 
the 
line 
against 
three 

blockers, Jocz charged at the punter 
untouched, once again sticking his 
arm into the ball’s path. Sophomore 
wide receiver Grant Perry turned 
the loose ball into a touchdown, 
permanently shifting the momentum. 
The Wolverines went on to win, 45-28. 
The man who never thought he’d play 
for Michigan had proven his mother 
right.

“Obviously, when it happened this 

year, I was like, ‘Mike…’ ” Ann-Marie 
said, “and he just smiled at me and he 
goes, ‘Mom, I know.’ ”

***

Strange as it sounds, Jocz faced 

that adversity in the classroom, too. 
Two years ago, Jocz had adjusted to 
Michigan football, proven himself on 
the scout team and even saw the field 
a few times. He had found a way to 
manage all of it, and yet he feared it 
could all come crashing down.

The more difficult mechanical 

engineering 
classes 
stressed 
him 

out. The pressure to perform in 
front of 110,000 people on Saturdays 
compounded that. He pushed his 
body to hold that spot on the field, but 
suddenly lost it. He spent long hours 
studying heat transfer in an Evanston 
hotel room, but the same week he 
struggled on an exam.

The student perceived as perfect 

experienced one of his first brushes 
with the stress most students know so 
well. Again, Jocz thought to himself: 
Man, this is getting to be a little much.

He called his parents again.
Ann-Marie remembers that call. 

She remembers her son sweating, his 
heart racing, his mind again doubting 
whether he could handle the workload.

Jocz went back to breaking things 

down. First he made it through that 
week, then back onto the special teams 
unit, then to an “A” in the class.

It was not his best semester. He did 

not sleep enough. He did not relax 
much. His team went 5-7, its worst 
finish of his career. And yet he grew.

“I learned that I can push myself 

further than I think I can,” Jocz said. 
“Your mind oftentimes gives out 

before the body, so your mind is telling 
you to stop well before your actual 
limits. Football, you can always take 
another snap, give a little bit more. And 
in the classroom, if you put your mind 

to it, you can retain more information, 
you can figure stuff out better. I think 
it’s just more that I can do both.”

Each time Jocz overcame one of 

those hurdles, he gained confidence 
that his work would help lift him 
over the next. In the end, he found 
perspective.

“It was a lot of self-induced stress, 

but then again, there’s nowhere else 
I’d rather be doing this,” Jocz said. “I 
don’t think I’d be able to push myself or 
put in the amount of time at any other 
school besides Michigan. It’s just kind 
of what I’ve dreamed about. So I don’t 
mind staying up later trying to get this 
stuff done, because I take a lot of pride 
in succeeding at both.”

***

Saturday, Jocz will run out of the 

tunnel at Michigan Stadium for the last 
time. His dream ride is almost over, not 
so much the one of being an engineer 
or the one of being a football player, 
but the one of being at Michigan, the 
school his family attended, the school 
he grew up at, the only school he’s ever 
known. Football and engineering are 
only parts of that.

Asked what more he’d want to 

be known for, Jocz paused before 
saying, “I guess it’s how much I care 
about my teammates and my friends. 
Some of my best friends I made on 
the team, I’m living with them now. 
Some of the friendships I’ve made 
with them will last a lifetime. Some 
of the memories, I’ll do anything for 
my friends. That’s what people don’t 
really know about me.”

Jocz’s intelligence and athleticism 

are just two facts about him. Here 
are some more: He is engaged to be 
married in July to Natalie Paul, his 
high school sweetheart who graduated 
last spring from Washington and 
Jefferson (Pa.) College.

He has a younger sister, Kathryn, 

9, and an older sister, Jennifer, 25, 
who also graduated from Michigan 
and is now studying toward a Ph.D. in 
chemical engineering. “She got more 
brains than I did,” Jocz quipped.

He certainly got plenty. When he’s in 

the locker room, he stands out because 
of his academic ability. When Jocz is in 
the classroom, he stands out because of 
his football ability. When he’s with his 

friends, he’s just himself.

“It’s always nice, to get away from 

both,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a bad 
thing to be known as the smart guy and 
the athletic guy, but it’s nice to not be 
thought of as one or the other. When 
you’re with your friends, you’re just 
Michael, just as they’re Ben Braden, 
Ben Pliska, Juwann Bushell-Beatty, 
Greg Froelich.”

With those four offensive linemen 

as 
roommates, 
Jocz 
has 
good 

company for dinner. Jocz’s father 
calls him a “home body,” more 
interested in spending time with a 
small, tight-knit group of friends 
than going out and being part of a 
bigger party. He likes to tease his 
roommates and have them tease him 
back. He likes to laugh.

There, he doesn’t have to trumpet 

his status as an academic or a football 
player, either. (“If you talked to him 
and didn’t know that,” his mother 
adds, “he’s not going to tell you.”)

As his career winds down, Jocz 

may go down as one of the top 
scholars in the history of the football 
program. He hopes to be more than 
that, but in the end, he’s grateful for 
every part of his dream.

“When you’re at football, you’re 

focused on football. When you’re in 
class, you’re in class,” Jocz said. “But 
then you can really be yourself outside 
with your friends. It’s nice to not be 
thought of one as the other.

“But I guess (they’re) not bad things 

to be known for.”

FootballSaturday, November 19, 2016
4
5
TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com

A few weeks ago, Ben Braden 

recalled sitting around watching the 
Ohio State-Penn State football game 
the previous Saturday night with his 
roommates.

He listed them: Ben Pliska, a fifth-

year senior offensive lineman; Greg 
Froelich, a redshirt junior offensive 
lineman; Mike Jocz — “You guys 
know, the really smart guy,” Braden 
said with a laugh.

That label follows Jocz, a fifth-year 

senior tight end, around Schembechler 
Hall. It’s understandable. He is, 
after all, well on his way to earning 
a master’s degree in mechanical 
engineering after graduating with 
a team-high 3.964 GPA in the same 
major.

So it’s no surprise that Jocz’s 

academic prowess has captured media 
attention. His teammates routinely 
field reporters’ questions on the 
subject, and coach Jim Harbaugh has 
faced exactly one question about Jocz 
this season, on the same topic.

“We always kind of joke about how 

he’s the genius of the group,” said 

redshirt sophomore Ian Bunting, a 
tight end like Jocz.

Coaches seize it as a motivational 

tool — tight ends coach Jay Harbaugh 
even created the Michael Jocz Honor 
Society to recognize the tight end with 
the top score on the weekly playbook 
test. It is usually Michael Jocz.

Jocz seems more than comfortable 

with the notion that he will follow 
a different path than many of his 
teammates who land in the NFL 
next year. He hopes instead to earn 
headlines for designing concussion-
preventing helmets or improving self-
driving cars.

Either way, to many, Jocz’s path 

has captured two labels: great student 
and great football player. Braden’s joke 
aside, those close to him know him as 
much more.

“To them, I’m just their friend that 

happens to do well in school,” Jocz 
said. “I’m with them all the time, 
hanging out with them, so they just 
think of me as one of the guys.”

He doesn’t often think of himself as 

an incredible student or an incredible 
athlete. Those are just two things he 
enjoys doing. His career at Michigan 
has really been about realizing a 

lifelong dream — but if you thought 
everything has gone smoothly, you’d 
be wrong about Jocz again.

***

When Jocz was little, his family 

put an addition onto their Novi 
home. After months observing the 
head carpenter every day, 2-year-old 
Michael walked up to the man and 
said, matter-of-factly, “You have a new 
saw, don’t you? I’ve been watching 
you, and you’ve got a brand-new saw.”

Sure enough, the carpenter had 

just purchased a compound miter saw. 
Michael’s father, Warren, watched in 
shock and wondered: “What 2-year-
old picks that kind of thing up?”

Michael took off from there. Soon, 

he beat everyone at adding up the 
dice during Yahtzee games, and 
he’d calculate how much change his 
mother, Ann-Marie, would receive at 
the grocery store.

Before long, Warren — who also 

earned a bachelor’s and master’s 
in 
mechanical 
engineering 
from 

Michigan — began enlisting Michael’s 
help in chores around the house. 
Warren, a Ford Motor Company 

engineer for the past 29 years, was a 
worthy teacher, and Michael was his 
eager student.

In that sense, Jocz’s path to 

mechanical engineering wasn’t a 
surprise. His place on the football 
team, on the other hand, wasn’t easily 
forecast.

Jocz didn’t even begin playing 

football until his freshman year in 
high school. His prep career netted 
a handful of Division III offers, but 
Jocz only ever wanted to go to one 
school. He wore Michigan T-shirts, 
sweatshirts 
and 
hats 
nonstop. 

He estimates that 17 of his family 
members across five generations have 

gone to the University. As a kid, he 
even dressed up as a Michigan football 
player for Halloween.

So committed to this dream, he 

applied and committed to attend 
before the football team was even 
an option. That’s when his offensive 
coordinator at Novi stepped in and 
sent his highlight tape to former 
Michigan assistant Al Borges, who 
offered Jocz a spot as a walk-on.

“I got this opportunity to play for 

the winningest program in football 
history, and it was something that I’ve 
always dreamed about doing,” Jocz 
said. “I was like, ‘You know, why not? 
I’m never going to get this opportunity 
again, and why not make the best of 
it?’ ”

With that, Jocz joined the team, 

and he’s been there ever since. On 
the surface, it sounds like a charmed 
journey. Getting here required much 
more work.

***

On the third day of his first fall camp 

as a freshman, Jocz wanted to quit. In 
fairness, so did Vincent Smith, then an 
established senior running back.

JAKE LOURIM

Managing Sports Editor

“We always kind 

of joke about how 

he’s the genius of 

the group.”

ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily

Tight end Michael Jocz has played five years for the Michigan football team and carried a 3.964 GPA in mechanical engineering, but his career at Michigan means more than that.

CLAIRE ABDO/Daily

“When you’re 

with your 

friends, you’re 
just Michael.”

