Multi-sport athletes are common in high school, where players who picked up sports as a kid can continue to play them at the varsity level.
Traditionally, the trend stops at two or three sports, but Caledonia senior Lauren Brown has exceeded that.
After picking up powerlifting in the winter, Brown is now a four-sport athlete with the Cavaliers, and she’s not just a bench player.
She’s the star of the show in all four, a starter and main contributor who’s put together quite the athletic career already.
“Since middle school, I’ve had the chance to learn multiple sports, but I haven’t had the chance to shine like I have this year,” Brown said. “I haven’t gotten the recognition, which I don’t play for recognition. I play because I love the sport, but this past year, everything was a bit harder to process because I’m not used to it.”
It began growing up as she grew to love softball and soccer, two sports that had perfect timing over the course of the calendar year.
With soccer traditionally being a fall/winter sport and softball being a spring/summer sport, she could do both without issues of the two crossing over.
It was more than manageable to start out with and something many kids do to stay active and occupied, but once seventh grade came around, volleyball entered the mix.
“All my friends were trying out for volleyball, so I tried out with them, made the team, and I just really loved it,” Brown said. “It’s a fun sport that I grew to love.”
In her senior year, Caledonia started a girls powerlifting team for the first time, and who else would be involved but Brown, finishing the athletics quartet.
“It started with Izzy Glasgow, who suggested we should start a team,” Caledonia powerlifting coach Jason Forrester said. “Lauren was one of the first people I talked to after that. At first, she didn’t know how she was going to be able to do it with softball, but as the year got on, in about October, she said she was going to be able to do it. … She started getting stronger as she went and things started coming together.”
With such a busy schedule, Brown stays busy and regimented, waking up and going to the gym at 6 a.m. most days to keep herself going.
Naturally, powerlifting was the perfect progression of what she was doing in the gym and in her career, success from one sport has carried over into others. Once she started lifting, she got stronger and started playing better in softball.
Her work ethic, however, is what has pushed her to this point, an internal motor that brings her competitive side out in everything that she does.
“She’s almost like a perfectionist, which is a good thing in many ways,” Caledonia softball head coach Andy Finch said. “She focuses on what she can control, what she can do, and that’s how she’s become what she’s become. She’s become a great competitor, a great leader and a great player in all the sports she plays.”
Of the four, softball has been her best sport, and it’s the one she’ll continue playing at the next level, as she signed with Itawamba Community College in mid-November 2022.
Just because it’s her best sport doesn’t mean that she focuses on it above the rest, something that’s contributed to her athletic balance, allowing her success across the board.
“Everyone has a point in their career where they’re like ‘Do I want to keep playing,’” Brown said. “You have to remember why you keep playing in the first place. It’s because you love it, not because of the success you see. … There’s different aspects of every sport that I love and that have helped me.”
Such a busy schedule has come with points of doubt, most notably this season with volleyball.
“She’s been resilient over the years,” Caledonia volleyball head coach Samantha Brooks said. “She didn’t earn a starting spot in volleyball until this year and even in that, she was given a new role. … She never once showed me that she didn’t have the time or didn’t put forth the effort or that she was too busy or had too much going on. She just got in there and did what she needed to do to help our goal, which was winning a state championship.”
She persevered and that helped the Cavaliers get to and win their first-ever state championship in volleyball in late October.
From all-star game selections to All-District nominations, Brown has seemingly accomplished it all, and to top it off, in less than a month’s time, she’ll be representing the Cavs at the MHSAA Class 4A powerlifting state championships in Jackson.
“I’m very proud of her,” Forrester said. “I knew she would be able to do what she put her mind to, but it’s also set a good foundation for us as we move forward.”
All that’s left in her Caledonia before heading to Fulton is powerlifting and softball. The end is bittersweet, but this is just one chapter closing in her journey as she leaves a legacy as both an athlete and a person for future Cavalier athletes to follow.
“I don’t want my legacy to be about what I’ve done,” Brown said. “I want it to be about who I am and how I’ve treated people. I want that to carry on and I want people to leave this place better than they found it too.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
