Hometown: Lawrenceburg, Ind.
Birthplace: Fort Wayne, Ind.
Birthdate: 03/14/1994
Height: 6-0
Weight: 165 pounds
If not for Nick Goepper’s passion for skiing, he might have been a student at Ball State.
Instead, he’s a professional skier and represented America in the 2014 Olympic Games.
Goepper got a taste of the college life when he visited Ball State’s campus on Thursday. His sister is a freshman this year.
“I thought I’d get the tour, check out her dorm, meet some of her friends and try to embarrass her a little bit,” Goepper said.
While he was on campus, a few people came up and talked to him.
“It’s cool to still have that recognition six months after the fact,” Goepper said.
Goepper took the bronze medal in the 2014 Olympic Games in February. His event, ski slopestyle, was featured in the Olympic Games for the first time in 2014.
At Ball State, Goepper toured the campus, saying he loved the “hustle and bustle” of college.
“I love the idea of college so much,” Goepper said. “I never had a normal high school experience.”
Half of Goepper’s high school diploma was earned online while training.
“My whole adolescent life has been a little different than most normal kids,” he said.
Goepper has been skiing since he was 5 years old. From Lawrenceburg, Ind, he got most of his skiing experience at a young age at the nearby Perfect North Slopes.
He said he thinks a lot about what it would be like to go to college.
“I don’t want to cut myself short, but all I’ve done is skied for the past five years ... It’s so fun to kind of live vicariously through my sister for a minute,” he said.
Goepper said he wasn’t prepared for the aftermath of the Olympics.
“There’s no handbook that says ‘this is what you’re supposed to do when you go to the Olympics, do well and come back home,’” he said.
He is in the process of moving his permanent home from Indiana to Colorado.
“My home is out west now,“ he said. “It’s no longer temporarily Indiana and temporarily here or there. As much as I love being a Hoosier and where I’m from, I can’t really continue my career living in Lawrenceburg.”
While not a full-time student, Goepper will take a critical thinking class at DeVry University in Colorado — his first college class.
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