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Blonde AmbitionTrackster's tale reads like a popular movie script
By Brice Cherry
If Hollywood ever makes another movie in the Legally Blonde
series, Baylor track coach Todd Harbour has the perfect script. Here's
the setup: The Elle Woods character, eternally bubbly and seemingly
ditzy, is adamant that she can become one of the best distance runners
in the country.
 Without
any major scholarship offers, she accepts an offer to enroll at one of
the nation's premier track schools as little more than a walk-on.
Despite continual challenges, she reveals herself to be tougher--and
smarter--than anyone expected, and through pluck and tenacity she
indeed transforms herself into a national title-contending athlete.
Nah, no one would ever believe it, right? But here's the kicker--that
plotline is all true. You could call it the Lauren Hagans Story.
"Lauren’s story is amazing," Harbour said. "It's still hard for me to
believe how she's turned out, and I was there."
In her victory lap at Baylor, Hagans, a senior from Little Rock,
Arkansas, added to one of the more illustrious track legacies the
school has seen. A multiple all-conference and all-American performer
who recently finished seventh in the 1,500 meters at the NCAA
Championships, Hagans completes her college running career as Baylor's
school record-holder in a total of seven different events, more than
any other female trackster in school history.
To put that in perspective, Harbour shared or held a total of ten
school records when he graduated from Baylor in 1981, and the legendary
Michael Johnson held claim to eight. And you can bet that MJ or Harbour
didn't enter Baylor with as little fanfare as Hagans.
In fact, Hagans's first impression was mostly forgettable. "Coach
Harbour probably wouldn't want me to tell this, but he didn't even
remember me," Hagans said. "I came to Baylor on a visit and got a
chance to talk with him, and then later that year I had called him and
mentioned how I was interested in coming to Baylor. He was like, 'Well,
we're looking forward to meeting you.' And I was like, 'Uh, you did
meet me!'"
Despite winning Arkansas state titles in the 800-meter run and the mile
as a high school junior and senior, Hagans wasn't flooded with
scholarship offers.
"Lauren called me and told me she was interested in coming to Baylor,
that she'd already been accepted," Harbour said. "Little Rock Christian
was her school. She told me she'd run 5:20 in the mile. I told her,
'Okay, I'll give you some incentive. If you break 5:10, I'll give you
books.' She called me back that spring and was all excited--she got the
books."
Hagans's father, James, competed in the pole vault for Biola
University, an NAIA school in Los Angeles, during his college days. Yet
Lauren didn't naturally gravitate to the track. She played mostly
softball before finally giving cross country and track a shot in her
sophomore year of high school.
"I didn't even know what cross country was until my first meet," Hagans
said. "I was like, 'You just run around a field?' You had to have five
girls to qualify as a team, and one of ours was sick. They asked me to
come out and run just to fill out the team, and I was the fastest on
the team my first meet, and ended up getting third in the state.
"But Arkansas is not very competitive," she added, laughing. Such a
statement is part of Hagans's charm. She is unafraid to poke fun at
herself, to laugh at her missteps. But don't be fooled--underneath that
sunny exterior lies a sobering determination. Harbour realized as much
at Hagans's first collegiate practice back in 2004.
"It didn't take me long that fall to realize she could be really good,"
the coach said. "This good? I couldn't have told you that, but she was
so tough."
Though Hagans set the school record in the 1,000-meter run in her first
indoor track season, she encountered more than a few potholes in the
road. The worst of those came in the 2006 indoor season, at a meet in
Arkansas. Hagans and another runner became entangled while competing in
the 1,000 meters, and as Hagans fell to the track, another runner's
knee caught her in the face, giving Hagans a broken nose, a broken eye
socket, and a shattered cheekbone.
Doctors expected Hagans to miss eight weeks, but true to her nature,
she was back on the track in half that time. She even helped Baylor set
another school record that spring, in the distance medley relay.
Harbour expects his athletes to improve after they've enrolled at
Baylor. It's only natural. But when Harbour reflects on the strides
that Hagans has made in her four-year run at Baylor, he struggles to
find the right word to describe it. This is, after all, a girl who ran
a 5:08 mile in high school and who this June set a school record of
4:15.43 in the 1,500 meters at the NCAA meet.
"She's one of the best in the country, for sure," Harbour said. "She's
paid her dues. She told me before she ever got here four years ago she
eventually wanted to run professionally, and that's definitely going to
happen. She made it happen."
Hagans says she's thankful for every step of the journey, even the ones
that left her face-down on the track. "I've had a lot of bumps and
scrapes along the way, but I've improved so much," Hagans said. "I
don't have a national championship. I don't have a lot of things. But
if you look back at where I started from and where I am now, I've made
so much progress. I really wouldn’t trade it for anything."
Elle Woods couldn't have said it better herself.
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