Blue Devil Alumni Spotlight: Karen Mueser

Name – Karen Mueser
UW-Stout undergrad year – 1970
Major – Undergrad in Home Economics Education and Masters in Apparel, Textiles and Related Arts
Sport – Women's Gymnastics
Years Competed – 1967-70
Hometown (High School) – Chicago, Ill (William Howard Taft)
Currently Reside – Park Ridge, Ill.

Why did you choose to be a collegiate student-athlete at UW-Stout?  I wanted to be home economics teacher.  I really like the sewing part best.  My father worked with someone that attended Stout whose wife was a home economics education major at Stout and they recommended we check it out.  I visited and loved the campus.  Stout was the perfect size school as I didn't like the idea of going to a big school.  I got into gymnastics at Stout after I took a gymnastics physical education class with Kay Carter and she mentioned that she was starting a gymnastics team.  I had some gymnastics training growing up so when Kay asked if I wanted to be on it, I said yes.

What did you like most about competing in collegiate athletics?  I enjoyed competing with myself more than I did with anyone else. If we won that was great butI loved to push and challenge myself.  However, one time coach (John) Zuerlein asked me to try something on the uneven bars and I thought it was a little too risky, so I said no.  He was not happy with me about that.

What is the greatest lesson you learned from being a collegiate student-athlete? If I had to pick one word, I would say perseverance.  I had to learn to get up and try again.  Once I had an injury right before a state meet and had to go to the training room.  Women's sports were not big then and this may have been the first time a female had to use those facilities.  The door from the women's locker room to the facility was locked and could not be opened, so coach Z brought me through the men's locker room with a towel on my head so I couldn't see.  I am glad he did because I didn't want anyone to see who I was anyway.

Who was the most influential person in your athletic career?  I would have to say my dad.  He is the one that got me started when I was 11 in formal classes at Turner's, which is a German athletic society that focused on gymnastics.  Their motto was "sound mind, sound body."  My parents lived too far away to come to a lot of meets so when he came to one in Milwaukee I was so nervous that I blew everything.  I performed terribly and he just rolled his eyes and didn't say anything.  That was not like him, but I think he still enjoyed watching me.  I wanted to perform really well for him and show him what I could do, but it didn't work out too well.

What is your most memorable or favorite sports moment at UW-Stout?  We won the state meet in 1969.  We had to beat the favorite which was La Crosse.  It was a thrill for our group, since nobody in the athletic department even thought we were a real team yet.  I don't remember everything about the meet, but it all went right for us.

How did your teammates describe you as a person and a student-athlete?  I am not sure how they would describe me, but I know we all had so much fun together.  We laughed a lot but we would also work hard at practice every day.

Are you in contact with any former Blue Devil student-athletes? (If so, who?) I am still in contact with Marlene Weiman-Backhaus who lives in Menomonie and Elizabeth Lloyd-Lohse.  We talk every once in a while on the phone.  Sometime we bring up the past memories, but we talk a lot about what is happening in our lives now.

Give us a brief synopsis of your life since graduating from UW-Stout?  I taught middle school home economics for nine years and then went into the corporate world.  A job opened up at Sears in their textile laboratory, analyzing all types of products made from textiles for many different quality properties and I got it.  I had taken a class in Textile Science while doing my masters and knew this job was exactly what I was looking for.  I worked in the Sears Tower in Chicago 10 years and I worked for Sears in different capacities for 24 years.  I retired in 2003.  Near the end of my time at Sears, I worked part time on weekends or evenings at Dominican University teaching Textile Science in the fashion department.  I continued to do that from 2003 until 2013.  Since then I have been spending time relaxing and occasionally traveling.