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© 2002, Ed Hewitt |
| school/year |
Princeton/2002 |
| birth date |
May 1 |
| height |
5ft 8in |
| weight |
132 lbs |
| hometown |
Nashville, TN |
| major |
Psychology |
| sport |
Athletics-800m |
| training town |
Palo Alto, CA |
| coach |
Frank Gagliano |
| personal best |
2:03.8 |
| ranking |
#7 in the US |
| outstanding achievement |
2002 US Outdoor Champs 800m finalist |
| career goals |
Psychology and social work |
Lauren Simmons is used to excelling. At Princeton University, she received the C. Otto Von Kienbusch 2002 Sportswoman of the Year Award for high scholastic rank and proficiency in athletics. As a college senior, this track star won the Nancy Kraemer Award for Excellence in Leadership and was named NCAA All-American.
She earned second place in the NCAA, was ECAC Outdoor Champion, Heptagonal Indoor and Outdoor Champion, and Princeton Indoor and Outdoor Record Holder, all in the 800 meter race. She was also Heptagonal Outdoor Champion in the 1500 meter race, and captain of the Princeton varsity track and field women's team - all in her senior year. As a junior, she was Heptagonal Indoor and Outdoor Champion in the 800, Outdoor Champion as a sophomore and Heptagonal 4x800 meter relay champion as a freshman.
Simmons' personal best times are 2:03.8 in the 800 and 4:26 in the 1500. She hopes to pare her time in the 800 to below two minutes, allowing her to effectively compete in international competitions and the 2004 Olympic Trials. She has shaved nearly 12 seconds off her time since her personal best as a high school senior.
Since graduating Princeton in 2002 with a major in Psychology, Simmons has participated in the USA Nationals in Palo Alto, Calif., where she placed seventh. Her coach is Frank Gagliano and she is a member of the Nike Farm Team.
Once she has proven her athletic prowess, Simmons intends to pursue a career in psychology or possibly social work. She has served as a research assistant in autism in the Psychology Department at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, and as a volunteer at the Eden Institute in Princeton serving families of people with autism.
One thing Simmons has learned about herself is that second-place is not good enough for her. After securing a spot at Nationals in the spring of her senior year at Princeton, she was disappointed not to have come in first, despite making her personal best time in the prelims and knowing she had come farther than she ever thought she could.
"I finished a few tenths of a second behind the winner," Simmons shared. "I expected to be happy. Instead, I was disappointed because I really wanted to win. However, even with that disappointment, I felt I had reached a new level. Without realizing it before, I had become competitive with anyone. It was a special moment because, for the first time, I realized there was a lot more that I wanted to accomplish and I knew that this race could be just the beginning." |
