Lavender Kozaka is a name you have definitely heard of or seen if you keep up with sports at Oliver Ames. She competes in both indoor and outdoor track and is currently a holder of 9 different school records and is ranked very highly in the entire United States for long jump.
Before track, she had a very different idea of what she was going to play and compete in for a sport.
“I started running track my freshman year during indoor… I was actually going to do wrestling for the indoor season, but everybody I played softball and soccer with told me about how fast I was, and my cousin kept telling me to do it.”
Her cousin was a big inspiration for her with track, but she has had many inspirations along her journey to becoming a star of the Oliver Ames track team.
“Originally it was my grandparents and cousin obviously, but as I started track and got to know, like, most of the people, my friends that graduated, Grace Okocha and Julia Hansen. They became my biggest inspiration because of how hard they tried every single day, showing up to practice.”
Being such a high rank in the United States, finishing her junior indoor season ranked #36 for long jump and earning 7th place at Nike Indoor Nationals, she plans on pursuing track in college.
“I actually really like the idea of running track in college. Mostly for jumps, but yeah. I was looking at somewhere south, with warm weather. I really like the Carolinas or Florida, so I can get the most out of my practices.”
In college, along with her track career, she has a few ideas for what she wants to study.
“I was thinking about studying either engineering or something with biology. I’m leaning more towards engineering, but that could always change. It’s just my main interest because I’ve always been good at like, just building stuff, and I’m good with numbers, so I think those would go good together.
For fun, Lavender has a few hobbies that she does outside of track.
“I like to go shopping, and hang out with my friends. I also really like playing Roblox. I do that a lot in my free time. And it’s basically all I do with my time. Oh, and I also like to draw.”
When asked how she felt to be ranked in the US, and to have tons of school records, she, very simply, had this to say.
“It was pretty cool. Pretty good feeling. I just wanna get my PR higher.”
