Within the eyes of a collegiate coach, Maddie Scheier is a dream athlete.
“I inform my guys right here, like, in case you guys had the identical drive and mentality that my daughter had, that you just guys would have a greater probability of constructing it to the league,” mentioned her father, Adam Scheier, an assistant soccer coach at UNLV.
Aspiring to comply with within the footsteps of her athletic household, Maddie picked up a basketball at solely 3 years previous, mirroring her basketball-loving older sister. Come junior excessive, her abilities solely continued to develop. She dreamed of taking part in Division I basketball, and with school packages displaying curiosity, that dream was changing into a actuality. However what was imagined to be her breakout season turned a turning level in her athletic journey.
She suffered an ACL harm—an athlete’s worst worry—that ended her basketball profession. A devastating blow, contemplating the years she’d spent engaged on her craft. Now compelled to stroll off the courtroom and shut one chapter of her life, she took what some would name it tragedy and he or she referred to as it destiny.
She walked off the courtroom and onto the monitor.
With the palm timber swaying behind her, she is first on the monitor in Coral Gables together with her dream now her actuality as a Division I athlete. Her motivation is evident in her targeted expression, and her positivity is evident as the primary to hug and congratulate her teammates.
“I knew that in the long term it could be higher for me and now I bought to return to a ravishing place like Miami,” mentioned Scheier, recalling her choice to pursue monitor and discipline. Her physician had suggested that, given her harm, the extra linear nature of monitor and discipline could be extra helpful.
Her new coach, Amy Deem, acknowledged her work ethic instantly upon seeing her at practices.
“Maddie is feisty, she’s aggressive, she brings it each single day. She doesn’t come to follow moping. She brings the identical demeanor, the identical work ethic each single day, and all she needs to do is get higher,” mentioned Deem.
Having labored in school athletics, her father understands the sacrifices that it took to be in her place.
“I don’t get stunned after I watch her have the success that she’s having, nevertheless it undoubtedly fills me with delight and admiration,” he mentioned.
So whereas the game of alternative could have modified, her values stay the identical: Arduous work, willpower, and fervour.
That very same ardour drives her past athletics—into her profession in particular schooling.
Whereas sports activities formed her resilience, working with college students with particular wants provides her house to decelerate and join. This work brings Scheier the best victory of all: motivating others the way in which she motivates herself.
“It’s not nearly placing a smile on their face, it’s about how they make me really feel,” she mentioned. “They’re so completely happy and constructive, and simply grateful for the friendship.”
A friendship relationship again to center college sparked her love for working in particular schooling. She recalled a buddy who seemed to her for kindness and acceptance and he or she made a promise to ship each. Now she continues constructing these significant connections and uplifting others every single day.
And whereas discovering her new path, Scheier has blazed via Miami, and the data have adopted.
In the 2025 season, her performances have been value highlighting at each competitors. On the Tiger Paw Invitational in Clemson, Scheier broke the college’s 20-year-old one mile report as she clocked a 4:45.82, besting Melanie Schultz’s time of 4:46.81 set on March 5, 2005. Scheier’s new mark bettered her personal-best by practically three seconds.
In April, on the Wake Forest Invitation, Scheier broke the college report within the girls’s 3000m steeplechase with a time of 10:48.62. She bettered Bianca Banato’s 2022 report of 10:50.23.
By the top of the spring season her love of each group service and athletics have been awarded together with her incomes the Indoor Observe and Area All-ACC Tutorial Workforce and the Excellent Group Service Scholar-Athlete Award.
The identical willpower that pushed her to interrupt data on the monitor now fuels her work with Particular Olympics athletes. As a result of for Scheier, success isn’t nearly profitable—it’s about serving to others uncover their very own energy, simply as she discovered hers.