Making her own Tiger tracks

By Kyle Hobstetter on December 15, 2020

Since she was in high school, Lauren Coleman knew she wanted to get a master’s degree.

The Bowie, Maryland, native says she was inspired by her mom Deborah, who also has a master’s degree, calling her “a more educated and well-rounded person.”

This December, Coleman will graduate with a master’s degree in marketing intelligence. It is her second degree from TU, after she earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2019.

“Having that second degree just gives me a big boost of confidence,” Coleman says. “The things I’m learning here are really going to help me when I transition into the marketing world.”

Along with getting her education at TU, Coleman has been a star thrower for the Tigers’ track & field team. When she first visited campus she felt that TU was the right fit for her both from an athletic and academic standpoint. 

Initially Coleman admits that college was a bit of a challenge. She had to learn time management and adjust to the busy schedule of a student-athlete.

She also made it a priority to work closely with her professors. She credits faculty like Natalie Scala and Lisa Simmons for helping her prioritize academics while accommodating her track schedule.

“I had a wide range of professors who really improved my academic experience,” Coleman says. “I got to learn from people who work in the field, because some of my professors were working full time at some big firms, so it was really nice to learn from them and their daily experiences.”

But her strong focus on academics didn’t take away from Coleman’s athletic success.

This past season, she became the first Towson Tiger to qualify for the NCAA Division I Track &  Field Championship. Scheduled to take place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March, the event was canceled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Coleman was a part of the 2017 Towson Tigers team that won the school’s first Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Track & Field Championship. She was also named the 2018 Most Outstanding Female Field Athlete following that year’s CAA and East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) championships and has won the CAA and ECAC shotput championships two years in a row.

She credits her success to the three coaching staffs that she’s worked with, along with her hard work.

“My success means everything to me because it really showcases the work that I put in,” Coleman says. “I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've had here. I can't thank Coach [Mike] Jackson enough for trusting me to perform well at each meet.”

Last year Coleman’s academic and athletic worlds intertwined during her internship with the Towson University athletic department’s marketing team.  

Through that experience, Coleman found her career field: sports marketing.

“Everything that I’ve done in this internship is what I’m looking for in a full-time job. If someone offered me something similar to this, I would take it in a heartbeat,” Coleman says. “I gained a lot of skills and learned lessons, but I also had a lot of fun being around the sports environment.”

Even though she is graduating, Coleman still has one more season of athletic eligibility. So this spring she will start a one-year supply chain management postgraduate certificate program.

With her master’s degree under her belt, her next big goal is clear: competing at the summer U.S. Olympic Trials in Oregon. 

“I have the same mentality of working hard and coming to practice every day, focusing on improving my techniques and getting stronger in the weight room,” Coleman says. “But in the short term, I’ll take another team CAA Championship and keep watching this [TU] program grow and evolve."