MUNCIE, Ind. — Over 190,000 students compete on a Division I University athletic team. That number gets smaller when taking into account just those that run track and field, falling somewhere in the 24,000 range. Out of those 24,000 student-athletes, there may not be any others like senior Jessica Velez and sophomore Maci Hoskins.
On the track, Velez and Hoskins are similar to their teammates and those they compete against. Velez races mainly in the 5,000-meter and even posted her personal best of 18:05.23 in the 2025 Indoor Season. Hoskins does shorter distances with the 800- and 1,500-meter races. On the track isn’t where these two are making a difference, though.
The real change for Velez and Hoskins comes in the Unified Media Lab on Ball State’s campus, where they serve on the executive board–Velez as the editor-in-chief and Hoskins as the co-associate editor–for Ball Bearings, a magazine run by Ball State students. The idea of being in student media, let alone as an executive, wasn’t something Velez even considered for her first few years on campus.
“If you would’ve told me at my first ever Ball Bearings meeting that I would be the editor-in-chief of the magazine in less than a year, I would’ve thought you were crazy,” said Velez. “But somehow, this is just how the cards landed.”
Even after the magazine journalism major joined Ball Bearings, it took Velez a while to feel comfortable being more than just a student-athlete. She was so uncomfortable that her day-to-day life began to be hindered.
“The first few months where I was writing stories were incredibly difficult,” Velez said. “I didn’t sleep a lot that year. And the crazy thing is that I was running the fastest I ever have.”
Once Velez settled in, she realized what others– most importantly Hoskins– were missing. After that realization, Velez was determined to keep Hoskins from missing out any longer.
“Spring semester, Jess finally talked me into it,” said Hoskins with a laugh. “She’d been nagging me for a while.”
Velez got Hoskins in to start, but Hoskin’s first story for Ball Bearings kept her coming back. The story's topic: divorce over the age of 50–something most college freshmen have no experience with.
“I had an hour-long phone call with this gentleman, and afterwards, I hung up the phone and cried for 15 minutes,” admitted Hoskins. “I was so overwhelmed with the emotion of everything that I was like, ‘yeah, I need to keep doing this.’”
Now, countless stories later, the duo continues to run together, write together and even live together.
Beyond the track is where their skillset and friendship blossomed, but that friendship has become so much more for these multi-talented student-athletes, especially for Hoskins.
In her own words, “She’s like an older sister that I never had.”
Contact Jake Dickman with comments at jacob.dickman@bsu.edu
