Minta Goes From Small Fish To Team Captain

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – The road home for Central Michigan student-athlete Georgina Minta is a little longer than that of the typical college student.

Minta, a senior captain on the Chippewa field hockey team, picked up the sport as a 14-year-old in Saxmundham, England. From there, she set her sights on a collegiate career in the United States.

"In England, it's a little bit different … we don't have student-athletics," Minta said. "I knew that I didn't want to go to a university in England, I wanted to go to a university elsewhere, so that's when I started looking into being a student-athlete and getting recruited."

Whereas many student-athletes face a major step up in competition with the transition from high school to college, Minta said her days as a club player in England helped to prepare her for competition at the collegiate level.

"On my club team, I was a really small fish in a really big pond," she said. "I'd be super happy if I even went in (to a game) because I was playing with senior professionals and people who were playing for their country for their age group. I was an anomaly."

In the 'big pond' of English field hockey players, Minta's role did not include leadership. That is something she has added to her repertoire since arriving at CMU in 2016. And she has found her voice as a captain of the Chippewas.

"I had never been in a position where I was the central focus or the nuclei of the team," she said. "It took me a while to understand that I had a voice and that it needed to carry."

Minta's growth as a leader has made her presence on the program all the more impactful, said Catherine Ostoich, who is in her second year in charge of the program.

"She's just grown into such an amazing leader," Ostoich said. "She's the one that brings the energy to practice every single day, whether she's having a good day or not. That is pretty awesome and something we will miss next year."

Minta thinks just as highly of her coach as her coach does of her, and their relationship has blossomed.

"It's very clear and direct," Minta said of that relationship. "(Ostoich) knows what she wants from me and she doesn't have to jump through hoops or tread on eggshells to tell me what she wants. She has a lot of trust and faith in me and I take that and run with it."

Also important to Minta are the relationships she's built with her CMU teammates, who affectionately refer to her as "Georgie."

"I always say that I hate off days because I never see any of my teammates, and for me that's a really sad thing," Minta said.

If off days are hard, what comes after the Chippewas' season comes to an end will be even harder.

A law and economics major, Minta is dually enrolled in an accelerated master's program for international administration. She will move back to England following the season and start a job at an investment bank in London.

That timetable leaves just a few short weeks for Minta to enjoy everything that she has come to love about being a student-athlete in America.

"There's no words to be able to put next to it," she said of her college experience. "I've experienced such a realm of emotions … just unbelievable. I would recommend it to anybody who had a glimpse of opportunity to do what I've been able to do."

Players Mentioned

Georgina Minta

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