This feature originally appeared in the 2025 Fall edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.



One of toughest setbacks that any athlete can face is injury. When they occur, they often bring up very tough conversations and decisions.

 "Can I still play?" "Should I still play?" "Am I willing to walk this long road to recovery?'"

Forward Mia Fontana of the Cal women's soccer team is no stranger to these kinds of hardships. The Golden Bear who dons the No. 7 has been in Berkeley exactly that many years and is currently in her "senior" season.

How does one get to a seventh year of Division I competition? It takes having probably one of the most unique stories in the NCAA.

In 2018, as Fontana was completing a busy final season of her high school and club career, she began to feel pain in her right foot. She was invited to the United States Youth National Team camp, but her foot injury took a turn for the worse.

"It was an overuse injury," Fontana said. "I had gone through a couple of pulled groins and sprained ankles before, but that was my first significant injury."

Fontana had suffered a sesamoid fracture, leaving a dead bone inside of her foot that never healed.

Fontana had been off the pitch for nearly a year and was just getting out of her walking boot when she arrived at Cal in the summer of 2019. With the NCAA season starting roughly two weeks after the team reports, there was no way Fontana would be in soccer shape to play her freshman season. She and the program decided it would be best for her to take a medical redshirt.

Following the 2019 season, just as Fontana was starting to integrate back into soccer and play with her teammates for the first time, a historical event decided to throw another wrench in her collegiate career. The COVID-19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, the fall season was canceled, and everyone was sent home.

There was no training, no competitions, and no team activities. The Golden Bears didn't play as a team again until the Spring of 2021 when they had a shortened season. Fontana took the field for the first time at Cal, seeing time in 11 of 13 matches and scoring her first career goal with a game-winner in a 1-0 defeat of rival Stanford.

"That spring season was the first time I played real soccer in just over a year and a half," Fontana said. "It takes a while to figure it out again even from a social aspect having been away from a team environment for that long. It's more of a mental battle than a physical one, for sure."

The next couple of years were relatively smooth. The 2021 spring season did not end up counting against a student-athlete's eligibility, so Fontana's clock didn't start until the Fall of 2021 - which would technically be her freshman athletic season despite her being a junior academically.

Fontana played in 13 matches that season and made seven starts. In 2022, she set career highs with 16 starts and 1,195 minutes played. In 2023, she missed some matches with some minor injuries but that wasn't enough to stop her from scoring a career-high three goals and earning a Third Team All-Pac-12 selection.

In her own mind, Fontana was done with the college game following the 2023 season and ready to pursue a professional career. She received an invitation as a trialist to go train with the Chicago Red Stars at their preseason camp for a few weeks in January 2024.

"I had fully planned on being done after December 2023," Fontana said. "I went out to train with them for a couple weeks and, frankly, I just wasn't ready for it from a confidence standpoint. You think you're ready but you really start from bottom again."

Fontana returned to her home in Burlingame and began weighing her options with her family and Cal head coach Neil McGuire.

"Neil was really great because he truly wants what's best for his athletes and was going to support whatever decision I made," Fontana said. "We talked about trying to play abroad and trying for another team in the states, but ultimately landed on coming back to Cal.  I had really only played three full seasons and didn't feel like I had hit my full potential."

Cal had joined the ACC, which is widely regarded as the top conference in the sport, and Fontana was going to be joined by a huge senior class that included a couple of other fifth-years who decided to come back to usher in the new era.

It was all going according to plan – until Fontana tore her right ACL during practice days before the season was set to begin. The injury was sustained during a non-contact defensive drill on a cut she has made thousands of times.

"I came back the fittest I've ever felt and the most technically sound I have even been," Fontana said. "So really it was just bad luck. I felt the most ready I had so it just goes to show you that even if you're at your strongest something like this can still happen. It was really defeating."

So began a new era of Fontana's life. She underwent successful patella tendon surgery, and a year-long recovery began. Once again Fontana was faced with decisions, and she leaned on her support system in those moments.

"I got so much support from my family and the coaches," Fontana said. "They basically said they would back me with whatever I decide to do. So, I decided to come back and end my college career on my own terms. The team made me feel so welcome in my decision, so I really owe a lot to them for their support and our culture."

With that decision in mind, Fontana began the grueling process of recovering from one of sports' most devastating injuries. Throughout 2024, the person she spent the most time with was the team's athletic trainer, Drew Dzurko.

"It's not easy to do what [Fontana] has done," Dzurko said. "It's a whole year of hard work and relentless determination. She has been working extra days with her strength coaches all summer and has even been training with other teams just because she felt like she needed to see the field and I really respect that."    
         
Even though Fontana couldn't compete, she still found several ways to stay involved and support the program. She attended the practices she could and even took on the role of color analyst of the team's ACC Network Extra broadcasts for a handful of matches.

Fontana has earned a pair undergraduate degrees, double-majoring in Political Economics and Media Studies. She has completed graduate certificates in Business Administration and Entrepreneurship and is currently working on another in Data Analytics.

"Everyone's soccer journey is very different," Fontana said. "Whether it's really seamless, or they hit their stride later, or they peak really early and don't continue on. So that's why I just say 'Yeah, I'm a seventh year. That's my story.' I wasn't the first and I probably won't be the last."