Steven Cozza - Professional Cyclist | Team NetApp Rider

Interview Steven Cozza – The Daily Peloton

admin — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:09:23 +0000

Interview: Steven Cozza

By Luke Allingham

Date: March 8, 2012

The Daily Peloton / Pro Cycling News

Interview with Steven
Cozza who recently put his career on hold due to health problems. Steven rode
for the teams of Jonathan Vaughters and joined German Team NetApp in 2011.

Steven Cozza started his career as a professional
cyclist at the age of twenty-two, when he joined Jonathan Vaughter’s Pro
Continental squad, Slipstream Powered by Chipotle. He rode with the American
based team until the end of 2010. At the beginning of 2011, the young cyclist
signed for German based Professional Continental team NetApp. He rode in Team
NetApp colors until March, 2012 when Cozza put a pause on his career due to
health problems.

During his five year career Cozza had some impressive results. In 2005 he
took a victory at U.S U-23 National Time Trial Championships. During his first
year with Vaughter’s team (2007), Cozza won the Best Young Rider’s
Classification at the Tour of Missouri, the team also took the Team
Classification

Steven Cozza (Garmin-Slipstream) was in the breakaway
for most the race at the 2009 Paris-Roubaix. Photo © Scott Cozza

How did you get interested or started in the
sport of cycling? How old were you when you started?

I started off BMX racing. Then switched over to the mtb when I was 12. Friends got
me interested in mtb racing. Then I broke my shoulder in a high school wresting
accident so I had to ride my mtb on the road for 1 year. From then on I was
hooked. That was in ’99 when Lance Armstrong won his first TDF. That really
inspired me.

What advice would you give to a
amateur cyclist, who dreams of becoming a professional
cyclist?

Keep dreaming and having fun.

You raced with Team NetApp until just recently when you put a hold
on your career, what did you experience with team while you raced with them?
What were some of the good and bad moments with the team?

It was pretty interesting going from JVs Team Garmin to a German team. Completely
opposite in terms of personality and vibe. NetApp is a new team and they are
growing very fast much like Garmin did. The environment was extremely serious
and strict much like how it was as an U-23 on the US National team. I think all
teams would be a lot better if they would relax, loosen up and have some
fun.

If you had to choose your favorite pro
cyclist from any era, who would it be? From the current
peloton?

Well all my previous favorites have tested positive
or are being investigated so they are out. Its sad. Growing up, my walls were
covered with Pro Cyclist posters. Since then all those posters have been thrown
in the trash because every single one has been charged or suspected of doping.
My favorite athletes now are all the new up and comers like, Matthew Busche,
Brent Bookwalter, Andrew Talansky, Peter Stetina and Tejay Van Garderen.

Steven Cozza at the team NetApp 2012 training camp.
Photo © Scott
Cozza

What music do you keep on your
playlist?

Bush, Tom Petty, Incubus, and the Spice
Girls.

In 2005 you took first place at the
U.S U-23 National Time Trial Championships – tell us about that victory and what
your feeling on it are.

It was cool. The day before I had
raced off the front of the road race the entire day, so to win the next days
Time Trial and by such a large margin was cool.

At the 2007 Tour of Missouri you won the Best
Young Rider’s Classification and your team won the Teams Classification. Tell us
what you remember about that race and what your experience was.

Its great. As a team we were having so much fun and racing our butts
off.

As I mentioned in a previous question, you recently called a halt to your professional career – what made you decide to do that? Do you ever think you will return to the top level?

I had been struggling with stomach troubles for some
time now. I was finally properly diagnosed with Colitis. Since being diagnosed
it has been a learning process to learn how to prevent flair ups. I no longer
could race as I use to and it became extremely frustrating to be controlled by
health issues. I am giving myself sometime to do other things in life and I hope
one day soon I will have a grip on my stomach troubles so that I can return to
racing bikes.

Now that you’ve stopped
racing, what will you be spending most of your time doing
nowadays?

Working, kite boarding, kayaking, playing with new
puppy, fishing, hiking and camping with my Fiancé, Jen, and all the things I
couldn’t do while racing bikes.

If you could thank anyone who was involved with your cycling life who would it be and
why?

My Dad and Mom who gave me my first racing bikes and
always stood by my side supporting me through good and bad times. I also thank
Jen for helping me stay strong while I was having to race with health issues and
putting up with me when I was depressed and not the person she once new. Big
thanks to my coach Dario from Whole Athlete for coaching me for 7 years and
guiding me to incredible fitness and lastly I thank all my loyal fans who have
supported and cheered me on this entire time. I would also like to thank the
coach of Team Swift, Laura Charameda, for introducing me to cycling and pointing
me in the right direction.

Is there anything else you think we should talk about or anything else you’d like to
mention?

Yes!!! My Race for Kids fan club is still going on.
You can become a Race for Kids fan club member by going to www.stevencozza.com and
choosing a child’s charity of your choose. Its also tax deductible. Just a month
ago my 2 year old God Son, Brody, was diagnosed with Leukemia. He’s been supper
strong but needs financial support. You can donate to Brody by going to www.stevencozza.com. Or you
can mail a check to.

Race for Kids
POB 2752
Petaluma
CA
94952
USA
A Global Program helping children world wide

Please make checks out to Race for Kids and put at the bottom
for Brody Tatman.

After we receive your donation you will become an
official member and earn the chance to win cool cycling things throughout the
year.
Follow Steven on his Twitter or website

Celebrating our tenth year!

“The Stache” Cozza To Pause His Career

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:39:37 +0000

SEG / Cycling

http://www.seginternational.com/

Monday February 27, 2012

News
Monday, 27 february 2012 at 12:13

Steven ‘The Stache’ Cozza to pause his career
After struggling with enduring health problems, Steven Cozza has decided to pause his career as a professional cyclist.

“For too long now I have been struggling with Colitis. I am getting better at managing it but at this point it is not improving fast enough for me to continue at this professional level in the sport of cycling”, says Steven Cozza.

“I love the sport of cycling so to only be able to perform at 50% of my best because of my health has been very frustrating. I miss the rider I use to be – the aggressive one attacking nonstop throughout the race. Therefore, I have made a really tough decision to change my focus away from racing. I have to get my body and my health right – that’s all that counts. But in the end I can be proud because I know I gave it my best until the end”, explains Steven Cozza his decision.

“Team NetApp has been very supportive and I am so happy that they have reached such a high level of success in such a short time. I wish so much that I was able to give more to the team. I will miss all the guys and wish them the very best this season”, continues Steven Cozza.

“Steven was so crucial for helping our young team to advance. After our first year he was brave enough to believe in our ambitious plans. I take my hat off to this very private decision to pause the stressful side of life and to recharge his batteries“, says Ralph Denk, Team Manager Team NetApp.

“I want to thank all my loyal fans for all their support through the good and hard times of this sport.”

“NEVER GIVE UP!”

admin — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:39:23 +0000

“Never Give Up!”

“Never Give Up” from scott cozza on Vimeo.

Everyone at one time or another in life face harships or obsticles that may seem overwhelming. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help from a friend or someone you trust. You can be proud of yourself for Never Giving Up and always trying your best no matter what the result.

The Brody Tatman Trust Fund

admin — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:23:56 +0000

I am asking for help from my friends and family and those I don’t know, but are willing to help my little buddy. My Godson Brody Tatman 2 years old was recently diagnosed with leukemia. Please help Brody by making a monetary contribution to The Brody Tatman Trust Fund.

Please spread the word and donate if at all possible.

Make checks payable to The Brody Tatman Trust Fund and please mail to:

The Brody Tatman Trust Fund
C/O Exchange Bank
6290 Commerce Blvd
Rohnert Park, CA 94928 USA

Telephone – 707 524 3000

Tax Deductible

If you’d like your donation to be * tax deductible then you can make your check out to

Steven Cozza Race for Kids and note the donation is for The Brody Trust Fund on your check.

Your generous contribution will help pay for medical expenses and care that Brody’s parents, Jeff and Erika Tatman cannot afford.

Thanks guys

Steven

Godfather Steven With Brody 1 Day Old

Brody My Godson April 3, 2010

Brody in the Hospital February 2012

www.caringbridge.org A nonprofit connecting family and friends when health matters most.

This is Erika and Jeff Tatman’s personal page to update us all on Brody’s
progress and a place where we can support them. -thanks all, Steven

A CaringBridge website was created to share health news and receive support.
Show your support. Visit and keep up to date. Leave a message in the
guestbook.

Visit online
Find Brody’s site at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/brodytatman.

Visit on mobile
Visit Brody’s site using the CaringBridge iPhone app, Android app, or m.caringbridge.org. You can post updates, view guestbook
entries and manage photos all from your phone.

CaringBridge provides personal websites that connect people experiencing a
significant health challenge to family and friends, making each health journey
easier.

Sincerely,
Steven Cozza

Brody Loves Cars. Doing what children do, having fun!

Brody Loves Cars: Having Fun from scott cozza on Vimeo.

2012 Training Camp January 11-22, Mallorca, Spain

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:26:24 +0000

"I'm an aggressive, enthussiastic rider who is prepared to give everything for success."

Team NetApp & Giro d’Italia 2012

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:11:29 +0000

Press Releases | 10.01.2012

Team NetApp gets a wildcard for the Giro d’Italia

Raubling – January 10, 2012. The German Team NetApp is one of four second-league teams to be invited to compete at this year’s Giro d’Italia. As a result, the team, which is now in its third year of existence, will be taking part in one of the three major national tours.

“I was a bit speechless when I got the news. Although we presented ourselves in a confident way when applying, we also knew that we stood only an outside chance. Now it feels like the first season win. It’s a great confirmation for us,” was the reaction from Ralph Denk, Team NetApp’s team manager.

“Our thanks go out to RCS as the organizer of the Giro d’Italia. I’d like to thank them for the decision itself and for the implied confidence in our young team. The Giro will give us an opportunity to prove ourselves. I’d like to emphasize the courage it took RCS to venture down a new path in terms of awarding the wildcard,” Ralph Denk added.

The Giro d’Italia will be the highlight of the season for the tour specialists on the team. Thanks to the organizer’s early decision, the team can design its racing program and preparation for the season in such a way that it will be competitive at the start. With a view to the general classification, Team NetApp will send its young Czech rider, Leopold König, to compete there. In 2011, König was placed second in the Tour of Austria, third in the Tour de l’Ain and fifth in the Tour of Britain. “We believe that Leo still hasn’t exhausted his potential and that he will be able to finish the Giro in the top 20,” stated an optimistic team manager, Ralph Denk.

This year’s Giro d’Italia will be held from 5 to 27 May. It will start in Herning, Denmark, and finish in Milan. The professional riders will have to cover nearly 3,500 km over 21 stages. Two individual time trials, a team time trial and five mountain finishes are scheduled.

Off Season News: Getting Prepared For 2012

admin — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:40:45 +0000

October 29, 2011

The off season is here and that means it is time to do many other things along with riding the bike. This fall has been a unique one because I have been dealing with an illness that I was finally properly diagnosed with. Thanks to Team NetApp’s medical team for setting me up with a very good hospital in Germany for complete testing. I spent 3 days in the Aachen University Hospital undergoing every test you could possibly have for digestive health issues. The end result was that I was told I had Colitis of the intestines. I am now doing a lot of work to fix this so that I can be at my best in the coming year of racing. To change things up a bit I have been cross training in many different ways. Some days I run, other days I lift weights and even have been doing a bit of kayaking. For more relaxing activities I have been doing quite a bit of fishing, hiking and even building furniture. I am currently making my fiancée Jen and I a dining room table. It’s pretty cool because all the power tools I am using are German made and from the 70s. My friend, who I am borrowing the tools from and learning good technique is also German.

Along with all the cross training and hobbies I have been spending as much time as I can with my friends and family. They are always happy to have me around for the off season and holidays. Dealing with Colitis has been quite stressful so it is so great to have the close support from my family for a few months. I am doing everything I can every second of the day to get better from what plagued me during my first season with team NetApp. I look forward to updating you again when l get back to racing full swing ahead.

Thanks for reading,

Steven Cozza

Professional Cyclist Team NetApp

Steven Cozza’s Store

swoo — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 01:49:16 +0000

Mission Statement
“Racing to make a difference for disadvantaged children around the corner and around the world.”

Steven Cozza Race For Kids program is officially a 501 C3 Charitable Nonprofit as of April 14, 2011. So you can donate directly by clicking the DONATE button or you can donate by getting items from the Race for Kids Store. The Store is set up to help with raising funds for disadvantaged children globally. We do this by giving money to selected children’s charities and or individual children and their families. Here you will find all items that are available throughout the website in one easy location. All items are given away for a minimum donation. All financial contributions are donated to a selected children’s charity(s) and or a child and their family in need at the end of the year of the professional road race season. An award in the form of a monetary donation is granted from my Steven Cozza Race For Kids program. The name of the award is the Race for Kids Children’s Charity Annual Award Recipient for that given year.

"Asking you to help me raise money for disadvantaged children worldwide."

We are now a 501 C3 nonprofit charitable organiztion. So all your purchases are tax deductible.

RACE FOR KIDS STORE

We expect to launch the store shortly! Stay tuned!

Steven Cozza Giro Bello Classic This Rides For You, Dino Garcia

admin — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:00:38 +0000

June 24, 2011

A Triubte To My Friend Dino Garcia, by Gene Berman

From the below, you can very clearly discern what motivates me to raise massive money to cure what took Dino’s life and complicates mine. This should NEVER happen! And because of your incredible generosity, it may not, again. Thank you very much!!

Dino Garcia-Rossi’s Obit:

Dino Garcia-Rossi, a former biologist at Bodega Marine Lab, avid cyclist and father of three young boys, died June 17 after a five-year battle with cancer. He was 47.

Born Dino Garcia in El Salvador, he came to the United States while in high school to escape the civil war ravaging his homeland.

“He fell in love with California and his bicycle,” said his wife, Heather Garcia—Rossi, an English teacher at Montgomery High School.

Though he spoke little English, at the age of 17 Garcia-Rossi rode solo from Portland to Southern California. His love affair with the natural world blossomed.

After graduating from high school, he followed a family member to Georgia where got a degree in business as his father – a doctor who owned coffee farms in El Salvador – expected. Both his parents were killed in a car accident while visiting Georgia for his graduation from Berry College,

He returned to California and for a time stayed with his sister in Windsor. With his English still improving, he began taking classes at the Santa Rosa Junior College.

“He learned English by listening to Beatles songs,” his wife said.

While studying at the JC, he decided that he would not go into business, as he father had planned, but would follow his passion for exploration of the natural world and become a biologist.

“He loved everything about how the natural world works,” Heather Garcia-Rossi said.

It was at the JC that he also met his future wife, Heather Rossi. She followed him to U.C. Davis and eventually he got a job at the Bodega Marine Lab, studying everything from invasive species to fish genetics. He went on to receive his master’s degree in ecology from Sonoma State.

The couple made their home in Santa Rosa, and Garcia-Rossi did all he could to instill within his three sons – now ages 12, 9 and 5 – the same sense of wonder he felt about nature.

“It was completely normal for us to have the life cycle of some creature in our kitchen,” she said. “He thought it was really someone’s most important job to know about how the world works.”

In addition to cycling, he was an avid surfer and guitar player.

As his work in Bodega was ending, he was offered a job as a researcher at the National Cancer Institute in Washington, D.C.

A short time later, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, on the day his youngest son was due to be born. He went through a series of bone marrow transplants that gave him spells of remission.

Throughout his illness, Garcia-Rossi showed immense bravery and always put others first, his wife said.

“He was amazing,” she said. “He was the most curious person I ever met.”

Services will be at 1 p.m. on Sunday, July 3, at Congregation Shomrei Torah, 2600 Bennett Valley Road in Santa Rosa.

A fund for his children has been established at the Westamerica Bank branch in Montgomery Village (424 Farmers Lane, Santa Rosa CA 95405, phone: (707)576-3670).

And how I came to know and admire Dino:

I only came to know the Garcia-Rossi ‘s through Dino’s and my mutual diagnosis with MM in early 2007. At that time, Heather was a welcome pillar of support for Enid (my wife) as she was attempting to come to grips with a life-changing event. Generosity of spirit has been a continuous and laudable hallmark of the Garcia-Rossi family.

When I had stabilized and started to live with my diagnosis, was when my friendship with Dino began — he spurred my interest in cycling. I warned Dino that I was a slug on wheels, and that I did not want to hold him back. He laughed and said we should just “enjoy the ride.” Dino knew every scenic and strenuous route in the area and relished in finding the “warm-up hills” and the “one last hills” on each ride.

One morning, we were out in the Dry Creek Valley — instead of taking the usual turn to head us back toward Healdsburg on West Dry Creek, Dino suggested that we continue on Dry Creek to the state park at the end of the road. Once there, he led the way as we started the (until then unknown-to-me) ascent to the Lake Sonoma overlook. As was the routine on any hill climb of significance, Dino would climb ahead, double back, to see if I was OK, then climb again. On the third return, when truthfully, I would have happily and as easily hopped off the bike, to head it back down the hill, Dino (sensing this, no doubt) rode up alongside me, and placed is right hand in the small of my back and pushed me up the last part of the climb. When we reached the Lake Sonoma overlook, with me realizing what I would have missed (never having been there, even by car, before), I thanked Dino for the assist. He said, “that’s what friends are for.”

Dino always treated me and anyone I ever saw him encounter with generosity and gentleness. There was a calm around Dino that always made our times together very special, and a welcome respite from the day-to-day stuff in both our lives, and in managing with our illness.

I last saw Dino on his 47th birthday (June 13). He was sleeping when I arrived. I stood by his bed and watched him for quite a while. He opened his eyes, awoke, and gave me my last ‘dose’ of calm, humor and concern for me. As I parted his company to share his awake time with others waiting to offer their birthday wishes, Dino’s last words to me asked that I stay in touch with Heather and the boys. Dino to the end! I promise, I will, Dino. I will love and admire you always.

Gene Berman

Learn To Ride A Bike or “I Feel Happy of Myself!”

admin — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:20:59 +0000

We all can learn to ride a bike. If we practice we can do anything. We can even help change the world to make it an even better place. As the little boy with the passion of a lion says – “Believe in yourself and you can learn to ride a bike.” With the time we are given on this planet let’s find the courage to love so we can help make the world a better place and even to learn how to ride a bike…