(l-r) Brooke, Ethan, Evan, Mark, Kaelinn and Easton Jozsa.
(Photo courtesy of the Jozsa family)By Tom Kendra
LocalSportsJournal.com
The odds of one family having three children playing Division II college sports at the same time is something like 1 in 750,000.
So the Jozsa family is certainly defying the odds, with Ethan playing football at Hillsdale, Kaelinn softball at Tiffin (Ohio) and Evan football at Saginaw Valley - with 12-year-old Easton still making his way through the ranks as a 7th-grader at Oakridge.
What makes the story even more amazing is that sports was never the first priority at the Jozsa home.
“Our parents made it clear to us that we needed to be good people and do good in the classroom before we even think about sports,” said Ethan.
By all accounts, the Jozsa kids have consistently aced those first two objectives, while their parents, Mark and Brooke, were busy keeping track of their schedules, getting them where they needed to be and, of course, keeping them fed - which may have been the most difficult task of all.
Item: When all four of the kids were home this May, the Jozsa’s were going through two gallons of milk every day.
Mark and Brooke were making trips to Sam’s Club every couple of days, racking up a weekly grocery bill of almost $500 - which didn’t include meat, as they already have a freezer full of meat in the garage.
“I just … kind of eat a lot of food,” explained Evan, who is the biggest of the bunch at 6-8 and 285 pounds (his coaches want him to bulk up to 310 pounds). “Our parents do everything for us, including keeping us fed, which is obviously a full-time job.”
Gentle giants
Ethan is the oldest of the four kids and a smart, quiet, relentlessly hard-worker who set the tone for his younger siblings.
He played football, basketball and baseball all four years at Oakridge (graduating in 2022) and was a dominant lineman who started getting serious college attention in his junior year, when he grew to 6-5 and 250 pounds. He also sported an eye-catching 4.06 GPA.
“Football was always my favorite sport,” said Ethan, 22, who helped the Eagles win two West Michigan Conference titles and back-to-back District titles in his final two years. “It was such a positive experience at Oakridge, in all of my sports, that it was a hard transition to college and not playing all the time.”
Ethan played in just one game in his first two years at Hillsdale, but replaced an injured starter at left tackle during the 2024 season and has pretty much manned that position ever since.
Ethan, who is now 6-5, 280 pounds and a fifth-year senior, is the leader of the Chargers’ offensive line, where he is tasked with keying the running game and protecting the blind side for quarterbacks Eli Boyce and Colin McKernan. The Chargers are off to a strong, 6-2 start.
Ethan will graduate in December with a finance degree.
Evan may be three years younger than Ethan, but he is now three inches taller, towering above the rest of his family at 6-8 and 285 pounds.
His first love was basketball (he was 6-0 at the age of 12), but his focus later changed to football as college scouts descended on him - including Hillsdale, who wanted him to follow in his older brother’s footsteps, but he chose to go his own way to Saginaw Valley.
“Evan tried not to be in Ethan’s shadow, even though it was inevitable,” said Brooke, who is also an Oakridge graduate and former athlete. “Evan is the most outgoing and quick-witted of our kids.”
His career at Saginaw Valley has been slowed by a torn labrum, which required surgery last year. He couldn’t practice or lift weights with his upper body for nine months and was just cleared to return in April.
Evan is listed as a third-string left tackle for the Cardinals, who are off to a 3-4 start under new coach Mike Engle. He is an exercise science major, with the goal of becoming a physical therapist.
Hanging with the boys
The Jozsa boys are definitely gentle giants, while their sister is more aggressive.
“I would say that growing up as the only girl with three brothers made me more tough,” said Kaelinn, 20, a 2024 Oakridge graduate, who is undecided about her college major. “My brothers could use a little of my aggression on the football field.”
Kaelinn was also a three-sport standout for the Eagles (volleyball, basketball and softball), who made her biggest splash on the softball diamond.
She finished as the school’s all-time leader in home runs, powering Oakridge to three district titles in her four year varsity career, highlighted by a run to the Division 2 quarterfinals in her senior year.
Her college softball journey started at Ferris State, but she entered the transfer portal after last season and found her way to Tiffin in north-central Ohio, where she is off to a strong start in fall ball and is pushing for the starting spot at third base.
Kaelinn’s decision to transfer to a school 275 miles from home has added extra mileage to her dad’s truck and made for some logistical challenges for her parents - who try to make it to as many of their children’s sporting events as physically possible.
“Our kids have always been our priority and trying to get to their games is really important to us,” said Brooke, who noted that her and her husband have pulled a couple of Saturday doubles, attending games at Hillsdale and Saginaw Valley on the same day.
One more to go
Easton is the “caboose” of the Jozsa family, who just might end up as big as a train car before all is said and done.
Easton is now 5-10 at 12 years old, which his parents say puts him right in-between his older brothers in size at that age.
Like Evan, basketball was his favorite sport, but that could change after a very fun and successful first middle school football season this fall, where Easton helped the Eagles to a perfect 6-0 campaign.
Oakridge varsity coach Tim Parker, who coached his two older brothers and taught all three older siblings in the classroom, is excited to have another Jozsa in the high school in a couple of years.
“They are the most supportive, positive parents that you could ask for,” said Parker, who is in his second year as head coach but has been on the Oakridge football staff for more than 30 years. “The kids have great size, obviously, but they all have an incredible work ethic - in the classroom, in the weight room and on the field. They all give 100 percent all the time.”
That example of hard work starts at home. Mark founded Jozsa Electric in 2007 and Brooke works full-time in addition to taking care of the home, which is always kept in pristine condition - not an easy task with four children and their friends traipsing in and out (and grazing for food) at all hours of the day.
It’s just the way the Jozsas roll.
“My message has always been just to work hard and let your actions do the talking,” said Mark, who didn’t play sports until his senior year at Muskegon High School. “I guess we’ve never thought much about how rare it is to have all your kids playing college sports. For us, we just taught them to be good people, hold the door, say thank you, things like that.
“We are more proud of seeing them do those things than what they are doing in sports.”
LocalSportsJournal.com
The odds of one family having three children playing Division II college sports at the same time is something like 1 in 750,000.
So the Jozsa family is certainly defying the odds, with Ethan playing football at Hillsdale, Kaelinn softball at Tiffin (Ohio) and Evan football at Saginaw Valley - with 12-year-old Easton still making his way through the ranks as a 7th-grader at Oakridge.
What makes the story even more amazing is that sports was never the first priority at the Jozsa home.
“Our parents made it clear to us that we needed to be good people and do good in the classroom before we even think about sports,” said Ethan.
By all accounts, the Jozsa kids have consistently aced those first two objectives, while their parents, Mark and Brooke, were busy keeping track of their schedules, getting them where they needed to be and, of course, keeping them fed - which may have been the most difficult task of all.
Item: When all four of the kids were home this May, the Jozsa’s were going through two gallons of milk every day.
Mark and Brooke were making trips to Sam’s Club every couple of days, racking up a weekly grocery bill of almost $500 - which didn’t include meat, as they already have a freezer full of meat in the garage.
“I just … kind of eat a lot of food,” explained Evan, who is the biggest of the bunch at 6-8 and 285 pounds (his coaches want him to bulk up to 310 pounds). “Our parents do everything for us, including keeping us fed, which is obviously a full-time job.”
Gentle giants
Ethan is the oldest of the four kids and a smart, quiet, relentlessly hard-worker who set the tone for his younger siblings.
He played football, basketball and baseball all four years at Oakridge (graduating in 2022) and was a dominant lineman who started getting serious college attention in his junior year, when he grew to 6-5 and 250 pounds. He also sported an eye-catching 4.06 GPA.
“Football was always my favorite sport,” said Ethan, 22, who helped the Eagles win two West Michigan Conference titles and back-to-back District titles in his final two years. “It was such a positive experience at Oakridge, in all of my sports, that it was a hard transition to college and not playing all the time.”
Ethan played in just one game in his first two years at Hillsdale, but replaced an injured starter at left tackle during the 2024 season and has pretty much manned that position ever since.
Ethan, who is now 6-5, 280 pounds and a fifth-year senior, is the leader of the Chargers’ offensive line, where he is tasked with keying the running game and protecting the blind side for quarterbacks Eli Boyce and Colin McKernan. The Chargers are off to a strong, 6-2 start.
Ethan will graduate in December with a finance degree.
Evan may be three years younger than Ethan, but he is now three inches taller, towering above the rest of his family at 6-8 and 285 pounds.
His first love was basketball (he was 6-0 at the age of 12), but his focus later changed to football as college scouts descended on him - including Hillsdale, who wanted him to follow in his older brother’s footsteps, but he chose to go his own way to Saginaw Valley.
“Evan tried not to be in Ethan’s shadow, even though it was inevitable,” said Brooke, who is also an Oakridge graduate and former athlete. “Evan is the most outgoing and quick-witted of our kids.”
His career at Saginaw Valley has been slowed by a torn labrum, which required surgery last year. He couldn’t practice or lift weights with his upper body for nine months and was just cleared to return in April.
Evan is listed as a third-string left tackle for the Cardinals, who are off to a 3-4 start under new coach Mike Engle. He is an exercise science major, with the goal of becoming a physical therapist.
Hanging with the boys
The Jozsa boys are definitely gentle giants, while their sister is more aggressive.
“I would say that growing up as the only girl with three brothers made me more tough,” said Kaelinn, 20, a 2024 Oakridge graduate, who is undecided about her college major. “My brothers could use a little of my aggression on the football field.”
Kaelinn was also a three-sport standout for the Eagles (volleyball, basketball and softball), who made her biggest splash on the softball diamond.
She finished as the school’s all-time leader in home runs, powering Oakridge to three district titles in her four year varsity career, highlighted by a run to the Division 2 quarterfinals in her senior year.
Her college softball journey started at Ferris State, but she entered the transfer portal after last season and found her way to Tiffin in north-central Ohio, where she is off to a strong start in fall ball and is pushing for the starting spot at third base.
Kaelinn’s decision to transfer to a school 275 miles from home has added extra mileage to her dad’s truck and made for some logistical challenges for her parents - who try to make it to as many of their children’s sporting events as physically possible.
“Our kids have always been our priority and trying to get to their games is really important to us,” said Brooke, who noted that her and her husband have pulled a couple of Saturday doubles, attending games at Hillsdale and Saginaw Valley on the same day.
One more to go
Easton is the “caboose” of the Jozsa family, who just might end up as big as a train car before all is said and done.
Easton is now 5-10 at 12 years old, which his parents say puts him right in-between his older brothers in size at that age.
Like Evan, basketball was his favorite sport, but that could change after a very fun and successful first middle school football season this fall, where Easton helped the Eagles to a perfect 6-0 campaign.
Oakridge varsity coach Tim Parker, who coached his two older brothers and taught all three older siblings in the classroom, is excited to have another Jozsa in the high school in a couple of years.
“They are the most supportive, positive parents that you could ask for,” said Parker, who is in his second year as head coach but has been on the Oakridge football staff for more than 30 years. “The kids have great size, obviously, but they all have an incredible work ethic - in the classroom, in the weight room and on the field. They all give 100 percent all the time.”
That example of hard work starts at home. Mark founded Jozsa Electric in 2007 and Brooke works full-time in addition to taking care of the home, which is always kept in pristine condition - not an easy task with four children and their friends traipsing in and out (and grazing for food) at all hours of the day.
It’s just the way the Jozsas roll.
“My message has always been just to work hard and let your actions do the talking,” said Mark, who didn’t play sports until his senior year at Muskegon High School. “I guess we’ve never thought much about how rare it is to have all your kids playing college sports. For us, we just taught them to be good people, hold the door, say thank you, things like that.
“We are more proud of seeing them do those things than what they are doing in sports.”
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