WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Mueller following a new path
Ex-Waterford athlete,the state’s most dominant runner of the early 1990s, has moved on to her next challenge as mental health clinician
I t was after Liz Mueller's career as runner — those days when spectators might not have been shocked if Mueller, Waterford High School's girl wonder, could actually fly — after her days as a world lightweight boxing champion, that she returned to school.
She received her bachelor's degree in psychology at Mitchell College and her master's in education from Springfield College with an emphasis in clinical mental health.
"I had a little bit more of a focus being an older student. I could think things through a little different ... not saying that younger students can't think things through," Mueller said.
"It can be a little challenging; sometimes there's kind of an age gap. I felt like a grandma. I don't think they ever picked up on how old I was. There's a generation gap there. I was in my mid-30s . ... I would talk about movies and they would say, 'What?' They would talk about movies and I would say, 'What?'"
Mueller, 45, is a 1993 Waterford graduate and a 2010 inductee into the Waterford Athletic Hall of Fame.
In cross country, she swept the Eastern Connecticut Conference, Class M, State Open and New England championships for four straight seasons. She won the Kinney Cross Country Championship national final in 1991, as a junior, at Balboa Park in San Diego. She declined the opportunity to defend her title as a senior.
As a boxer, she won the International Women's Boxing Federation world lightweight championship on Dec. 7, 2001, at Foxwoods Resort Casino, earning a unanimous decision over Jaime "Hurricane" Clampitt. Mueller retired less than a week later, approximately two years after turning pro.
The 5-foot-4 Mueller competed fervently. She did so on her own terms.
Mueller is now a licensed mental health clinician in a short-term crisis stabilization program for adolescents, living in Massachusetts and working in Vermont. She began her current position just as the COVID-19 crisis began, creating somewhat of a challenge as she acclimated herself.
"It was like a bazillion years ago," Mueller said in a recent telephone conversation, asked to reflect on her memorable, dominant career as an athlete. "I'm proud that was something I was able to accomplish and now I've moved on to other aspects of my life."
Mueller was asked if she misses competing.
"That's a yes and no question," she
“It was like a bazillion years ago. I'm proud that was something I was able to accomplish and now I've moved on to other aspects of my life.”
LIZ MUELLER, 1993 WATERFORD HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE
said. "It's something that's kind of in you. You can't really put it on the shelf. With running and boxing, I was very successful. I'm very happy that I was successful. It's also very hard to compete at that level all the time.
"Part of me misses it. Part of me is OK with it not being present in my life."
Mueller said she felt like she was always chasing that next peak.
"Part of what can start to kind of appear for folks is, 'Maybe I've kind of done what I can do,'" Mueller said, continuing her look back. "You're never going to get to the 'You're there.' I have the perspective of being much older. In those years that was huge pressure."
At Waterford, Mueller was an elite athlete not only in cross country but in track and field, excelling in the 800 meters. She ran a blistering personal best of 2 minutes, 5.54 seconds in the 800 and still holds the ECC (2:11.80) and State Open (2:07.19) records in that event, both set in 1992.
After she won the national championship in cross country, Mueller returned to a school assembly celebrating her achievement and a proclamation from then-first selectman Tony Sheridan declaring it "Liz Mueller Day" in Waterford.
Her photograph appeared on the front page of The Day's sports section on Dec. 31, 1991, along with an article under the headline, "Quietly dealing with fame." Mueller, 16, was pictured barefoot, sitting in front of her family's Christmas tree.
Her mom, Sharon, shared the fact that it was taking her much longer to get through the grocery store as her daughter's notoriety reached a fever pitch. College recruiting letters came flooding into the Muellers' mailbox. Liz, at the time, had an interesting take on the college offers — "Not interested," she said.
Mueller enrolled at Central Connecticut State University for a time, majoring in art education and running briefly, long enough to win the Mid-Continent Conference cross country championship as a sophomore.
Mueller said in later interviews that injuries played a part in quashing her passion for running. In any case, she found boxing.
Mueller was introduced to Andy Macy, then the proprietor of Macy's Gym in East Lyme. She once said in a question and answer session on cyberboxingzone.com that it was her first sparring session with Macy's young son Tim that kicked her competitive nature into high gear again — "I got beat up by a 12-yearold boy," Mueller said. "This was not OK."
Macy became Mueller's manager. She went 15-3 as an amateur, winning the 132-pound division of the women's national Golden Gloves tournament in 1999, before turning professional. She was 8-2 as a pro with two knockouts.
"It's hard, it's difficult," Mueller said last week of her pursuit of boxing. "It's every day again. It was just a different aspect of sport and competition. It's always fun to learn something new. The effort was similar (to running). They're hard sports in different ways."
While she was boxing, Mueller received her introduction into the community health field while working for the New London Health Department in the HIV education and testing programs.
"When I retired from competition and from boxing, I started to think about what's next and what that was going to look like," Mueller said. "I had not finished my academic career. It's very difficult to have doors open unless you have a degree."
Now, Mueller, who delved into the field at Mitchell and then as a graduate assistant at Springfield, guides and supports adolescents she calls "the kiddos" at a facility for inpatient psychiatric care. She has a dog and a cat. She jogs. She jokes that when she retires, perhaps she will resume her career as an artist — "And I'm putting 'art' in quotations," she said with a laugh. "That's loosely framed. Time can kind of be a little bit of a challenge, but just kind of sketching or drawing, it's something I still do."
She visits her mother in Rhode Island for some beach days.
And every once in a while, Liz Mueller allows herself to look back.
"You don't forget just because you don't think about it," Mueller said. "You had these accomplishments that are meaningful and appreciated. It was definitely kind of an honor (to be inducted into the Waterford Hall of Fame). It's nice to be remembered. I'm proud of that.
"I'm equally as pleased things worked out for me after that." v.fulkerson@theday.com