Always Battling: The Raegan Lantz Story

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Raegan Lantz knows exactly when she decided she wanted to play volleyball in college.

"When I was in eighth grade, I went and watched my first college game at Texas A&M," Lantz recalled. "They were playing LSU and they won. I was like, 'Boom. I want to play college volleyball.' I set my eyes on it and worked hard."

Fast forward to today, and the sophomore outside hitter from Holland, Mich. has already accomplished that goal. Lantz enters the 2024 campaign looking to build on a debut season that saw her make 21 starts for the Miami RedHawks last fall. The former high-school All-American has a bright future in store as one of a dozen returning players on first-year head coach Dan Gwitt's roster heading into next month's season opener. Raegan Lantz

However, getting to this point hasn't been easy for Lantz.

That's because her eighth-grade year wasn't just when she decided to pursue a future in collegiate volleyball.

Eighth grade was also when Lantz started battling Type 1 diabetes.

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"My diabetes-versary is today."

(That's a sentence this writer doesn't hear very often during interviews!)

It's June 11, 2024, and Raegan Lantz is telling the story of how she first realized the opponent she would be facing and dealing with for the rest of her life.

Coincidentally, the day of our interview for this article happened to fall on the exact five-year anniversary of Lantz's diagnosis.

"At the end of eighth grade, I was starting to not feel very good…I lost about 10 pounds in two weeks, and really knew something was not right," Lantz said. "My oldest brother actually has Type 1 as well, so I knew the symptoms [drinking a lot of water, really hungry, extremely tired].

"I ended up mentioning something to my mom, and we went and tested my blood sugar. It was high every time."

While being diagnosed with a life-altering disease could understandably bring all sorts of questions to answer, one thing was set in Lantz's mind immediately and not up for debate.

"I had already decided I wanted to play college volleyball, and I wasn't going to let anything get in my way," Lantz explained. "I was just really determined to try and figure out what was going to work for me.

"Every day is a trial and error, but you find a way to work with it."

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Dealing with diabetes is basically a full-time job for Lantz (on top of the busy schedule she already juggles as a Human Capital Management and Leadership major in the Farmer School of Business and a Miami Volleyball student-athlete).

She wears a continuous glucose monitor that checks her blood sugar every five minutes and sends reports to her mobile phone and wristwatch. She wears an insulin pump that delivers her medicine. She spends her days trying to keep her levels from skyrocketing too high or plunging too low.

"It's a constant thought in my head," said Lantz. "Every day is different. There are over 42 factors that go into your blood sugar that you can't even control, so you just have to be ready for anything to happen. You can do one thing one day and your blood sugar be perfect, and then do the same thing the next day and it be completely different…

Raegan Lantz volleyball team huddle celebration

Raegan Lantz volleyball team huddle celebration

"When I'm playing, I'd rather be on the higher side, just so I don't have any problems of my blood sugar crashing really fast."

Lantz is grateful to have a support system of family, teammates, coaches and staff for her daily battles with the disease, including her mother, a nurse who now specializes in diabetes education.

"My teammates are amazing; they're always making sure I'm good," Lantz said. "If there's anything I need, they're always willing to help. It's the same thing with my coaches: Their number-one priority is to make sure that I'm healthy…they really truly want to understand what they can best do to help me, and that's a big thing."

However, most of the work and responsibility falls to Lantz herself.

"When you have a condition like that, you have to have a level of maturity to handle it," said Miami assistant athletic director for wellness services Jennifer Beardslee, who works directly with the RedHawks' volleyball program.

"She's always on top of it. Her family does a great job…[and she's] fortunate to have good equipment and make sure that she's being tracked well.

"From our side, I just try to be supportive in checking on her. Hard practices can be difficult, and we're very proactive with making sure she's got the appropriate snacks (food and drinks) she needs, being careful of sugar levels.

"It's a hard disease to deal with, and for someone that goes through two-hour practices a day, or long matches back-to-back, that can run you down pretty quick. Raegan handles it really well. My job is very minimal because of her maturity with it and how she and her family handle it."

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While Lantz might not have chosen the health journey that she's been forced to deal with for the past five-plus years, she has been intentional since then about using her experience to encourage other athletes who also have Type 1 diabetes, specifically on her social media accounts.

"Type 1 diabetes does not stop me from doing what I love or achieving my goals, but pushes me to want them even more," she posted recently.

"It's definitely just given me a different perspective on life," Lantz added. "I would say anyone with Type 1 is 10 times stronger because of it. There's so much you have to manage, and you have to be so aware of things all the time; you don't get a day off, and you can't take a break."

Working with Dexcom (the company that manufactures one of her medical devices), Lantz helped put on a kids' sports camp in southern California this summer, where she was able to team up with other pro and college athletes to share her message with middle schoolers who face the same health challenges she does.

"It's super important to me; I want kids to know this doesn't have to stop them," Lantz said. McCrary and Lantz

"There are going to be ups and downs…but you really just have to do your best every day and go at it with a positive attitude…

"I have really changed my thinking framework to, 'Nothing's impossible.' It's always just an obstacle. And you can always find a way."

"I think Raegan has a good outlook on life," said Gwitt. "She's just a wonderful person. It's part of something she goes through, and she doesn't whine about it. She doesn't pout. She doesn't make it about her. She just manages it…

"She's really special. You couldn't ask to coach a better human than her."

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Lantz's 'nothing-is-impossible' mentality naturally carries over onto the volleyball court, where she and the RedHawks hope to turn things around under Gwitt's leadership and chase the program's first MAC title since capturing four in a row from 2016-2019.

Known for her hard hitting and jumping ability, Lantz is focused this year on becoming more consistent and also developing as a passer while improving her volleyball IQ. She is soaking up as many coaching tips as possible from Gwitt and the RedHawks' new staff, down to the very smallest details of the sport, which should pay off when the Red and White get the season underway Aug. 30 in Norfolk, Va.

"We had our first practice with Dan the day after we met him," said Lantz. "We had to break a lot of things down and go back to a lot of basic skill stuff…but he was so detailed in giving us the 'why' and explaining why we were doing things or why he was changing things that it made it a lot easier to buy in.

"After the first two or three weeks, there was a significant growth. I was like, 'Holy cow.'

"I'm a person that likes a lot of feedback, so I really like being coached…I've bought into and trust what Dan's vision is and what he's having us do," Lantz continued. "I think he knows how to bring it out of each person, and he really does want us to succeed, and I know he's going to push us and not settle.

"It's really about finding out how to work best as a team and be able to compete and find ways to win."

Lantz hopes to eventually graduate from Miami with not only championships and records to her credit, but perhaps All-MAC or even All-American honors, before potentially pursuing a pro career. None of that would surprise her head coach.

"She has all of the ability. She has all of the mindset," said Gwitt. "She's awesome and fully bought in all the time, and she does all of the things right.

Raegan Lantz

"She has the arm. She has the athleticism…and her roof to be good is crazy. She can be a professional one day."

Until then, Lantz will continue doing today what she's tried to do each day for the last five years: Playing volleyball at the highest level with no excuses related to what she handles behind the scenes.

"I just want to be the hardest-working [person] I can be and let my play talk for itself," she said.

And if a fan in the stands at Millett Hall happens to hear the 'beep-beep-beep' of Lantz's glucose monitor, it certainly won't be long before that sound is once again drowned out by the cheers accompanying yet another big kill from the front row.

"She's not a complainer. She doesn't want to be out in the limelight of that," Beardslee said.

"She just wants to be known as Raegan – a student, an athlete and a volleyball player."

Find more Front Row Features at: MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures

Raegan Lantz and the RedHawks will play nine Mid-American Conference matches at Millett Hall this season, beginning Sept. 26 vs. Central Michigan. Season tickets are on sale now for $40, with a limited number of courtside seats available for $70; click here to reserve your tickets now!

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