In Doing Your Personal Best, One Can Be a Person for Others

Ivan Juzang might be remembered by the Carnegie Mellon University athletic community for his 1983 historic performance in track and field, but when he recalls his days as a Tartan, he sees how it shaped an important time in his life and fueled his career passion.

Juzang, a self-described Air Force brat from a low-income family, was an early admit to Carnegie Mellon after spending the summer of 1978 in a program called CMAP (Carnegie Mellon Action Project), which was geared toward orienting math-inclined minority students toward careers in engineering and science.

Juzang was interested in earning a basketball scholarship to college, but when his performance in CMAP that summer resulted in Carnegie Mellon offering him the opportunity to enroll early, his mother said that was the way to go and was clear that waiting on a basketball scholarship wasn’t an option for him. Adding to the allure of the university was the fact that Juzang’s older brother, Maxie, took the same path one year earlier.

The decision to attend Carnegie Mellon also meant basketball would take a back seat for at least a year, as early-admit students weren’t permitted to participate in intercollegiate sports.

“Of course my parents were right,” admits Juzang. “Coming out of poverty, this was the best avenue, particularly for a poor black kid, but I was too young at the time to understand it.”

With his mother’s influence fueling his passion for community, Juzang used his time away from basketball to get to know CMU classmates from the Hill District and Homewood.  Through those relationships, he became exposed to issues affecting inner-city residents. As a sophomore he returned to the basketball court, making the varsity team, but an injury at the start of his junior year derailed his basketball dream for good.

“I really had a dream for basketball and by not fulfilling that I was dealing with those wounds the first few years,” said Juzang. “When I knew I wasn’t going to play basketball again, I think I was depressed for a while and my grades suffered.”

Placed on academic probation, Juzang went through another down time for a student who had a 4.0 in high school.

Although unplanned, the extra year of schooling provided two things, a chance to complete a second degree and resurrect an athletic dream, albeit in a sport that held little interest for Juzang in the past.

Former track and field coach Gary Meckley had tried to convince Juzang to participate in track since he first saw him speeding down the basketball court with grace and athleticism that first year. But it took basketball teammates deciding to join the track team for the fun of it his last semester to persuade Juzang to enter uncharted waters that would make the biggest impact on his life.

“Coach Meckley asked me every year to join the track team,” said Juzang. “But I kept telling him it wasn’t my thing.”

Little did he know how much it truly was his thing.

Success came quickly for Juzang, as he broke the school’s long jump record at his second meet and became a conference champion and record holder at his third meet. With minimal training, Juzang qualified for nationals. On his second-to-last jump at the championships, he leaped to a new school record and personal best of 7.13 meters (23 feet, 4.75 inches) and became a NCAA Division III All-American.

“Ironically I was blessed to still have some kind of success in sports that I always wanted,” said Juzang. “I just wish I would have listened to Coach Meckley earlier. I really appreciate him sticking with me.”

And Meckley’s words after the meet are still used by Juzang today.

“He told me you have to learn that sometimes you have to try things and you just don’t know what you’re good at,” said Juzang. “And that’s my message to my son and others that I work with. People get caught up in stuff and if you try things, you realize you have skills and talents that you didn’t always know you have.”

Following graduation with a mechanical engineering and economics degree, Juzang lived in the Hill District of Pittsburgh while working at IBM in engineering and scientific sales. While he was first introduced to the Hill District through CMU’s tutoring and community outreach program, Juzang returned to the area to volunteer as a basketball coach. It was then that his career path evolved to what he is today, the founder and president of MEE (Motivational Educational Entertainment) Productions, a public health advertising agency.

“Pittsburgh was the first place I really got exposed to inter-city poverty,” said Juzang. “Even though we were low income, I was sheltered by living on air bases.”

The inspiration for Juzang’s move to behavior health communications stemmed from his time in Pittsburgh. Juzang saw bright and intelligent people who weren’t blessed with the best circumstances and was impressed with the resiliency he experienced while living and working in the community. He was also struck with the way the youth were communicating.

“I was mesmerized at the time with the young people I was working with in basketball, fifth and sixth graders, and how they were captivated by hip-hop culture and rap music,” said Juzang. “There was some sort of cultural communication that was going on through that vehicle and it was relating to that audience.”

When Juzang left Pittsburgh to attend the world-renowned Wharton Graduate School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, he knew there was something with communication and cultural relevance and had an interest in doing something in the community entrepreneurially.

Juzang morphed his business plan into MEE Productions and today uses all his skills from engineering and problem solving to persuasive sales and business to reach an audience with the highest health disparities in an effort to improve their health outcome.

“In track, they use the term personal best,” said Juzang. “The biggest thing I learned about competing in sports at Carnegie Mellon is that you should focus on your personal best and make sure you’re trying to achieve your definition of excellence.

“In my life, that’s what I’ve done,” continued Juzang. “I really feel I’m doing my personal best but in a non-traditional way. I’m really happy that I’m using my skill set from a variety of experiences.”