University of Minnesota Athletics
Players Mentioned
Varsity
/ Rowing
In the Launch with Lauren Miller
2/18/2020 3:56:00 PM | Rowing
Lauren Miller started off as a walk-on and worked her way up to a spot on the varsity team during her time with the Gopher rowing. Now, post-college, Miller is back with the program that gave her everything. Miller is a Graduate Assistant, working primarily with the novices, teaching them the fundamentals and preparing them for spring competition.
Gopher Sports: What was your experience as a collegiate-athlete at Minnesota like?
Lauren Miller: Truthfully, it was the most positive experience I probably have ever had with any athletics throughout my career. I was a swimmer from the age of six all the way up through high school. I never really had the intention of playing sports in college and didn't really know what rowing was when I got here. As I joined the team, even during my freshman year, I wasn't sure if I was going to stay past my freshman year and continue on to varsity. Now that I have, I am obviously back here to coach and it has completely changed the trajectory of my life in a very, very positive way.
GS: What made you try out as a freshman?
LM: I really didn't know what the sport was when I came here as a freshman. During Welcome Week and the Explore U Fair, the former novice coach came up and just stopped me right in my tracks. He just looked at me and said, "You're tall. Did you play sports in high school?" I told him yes and he asked if I wanted to try rowing. I didn't know what it was but I said sure. I showed up at the meeting and then the rest was history.
GS: How would you describe your coaching style?
LM: In my prior coaching experience I have been working with a lot of high school aged athletes and younger athletes. This is my first time working with this specific group of collegiate aged women. I think in my coaching style, I can be very intense and very passionate. Translating that into something that is useful to someone new to the sport like a novice, I am really having to find myself pulling back a little bit and breaking things down. With my own experience rowing, I have been told by other coaches that I am a student of the sport. I like to learn, collect new information, and I am very analytical. That combined with my excitement about the sport can be a little much for novices, so I have been trying to work with myself on simplifying things and to be as supportive of a coach as I can. I try to make it digestible for them.
GS: What made you want to come back to get your masters degree?
LM: I am a candidate for the Kinesiology M.S. program right now. The kinesiology department has an M.S. option which is basically where you are in a lab doing research and you write a thesis. The M.E.D option is more taking classes and you do a final project. Grad school has been going really well. I really enjoy the people I have been meeting and the connections I have been making in my classes. The nice thing about grad school is that the classes are really small and everyone in the class really wants to be there. When you are leading a discussion or you are having a small group discussion, it is actually a really lively discussion. It has been nice to learn from the older Ph.D. students that I have class with.
GS: What do you like to do outside of rowing?
LM: Athletically, I am also really interested in weight lifting, powerlifting specifically. Along with swimming, I also used to be a competitive triathlete. I really enjoy cycling and running. In my undergrad, I was an art minor so I am into drawing and painting. I do that as a little study break for me. I am involved in the band here at the U of M and I play the saxophone. It is basically a band full of people who were non-music majors and just enjoy playing. They have three or four different ensembles on campus. I like spending time outside hiking and doing all outdoor activities.
GS: What is something you are passionate about?
LM: With my experience as a student-athlete and as a coach when I was out in New York for a year, I get really excited when an athlete or a student has a light bulb moment. When they realize that this is how they do this and they figure it out. I get more excited when I see someone that I am helping or coaching figure something out than I do for my own personal best. That was a big realization for me in the past few years that I really like this and it is something I enjoy. Again, I wasn't sure about it at first because I was planning on going to medical school for the longest time. That was my ten year plan and what I was going to do. As I got into coaching and more involved in rowing I thought it was amazing and so cool what you could do. With the coaching side of things, I am also really interested in sports psychology. That is now what I am planning on doing with my life rather than medical school. Working with the athletes on really subtle things like your mental game in rowing. You are doing these erg tests and you are staring at your split on your number and you are seeing instantaneously how fast you are going and how the little changes you are making affect your speed. That can be very taxing mentally, so I think that in rowing the mental game is especially important. I am trying to draw on my excitement about that to help the athletes that I coach.
GS: What are your future career goals?
LM: As of right now, I'll be applying to Ph.D. programs for psychology next year. Either specifically sports psychology or counseling psychology. I personally worked with a sports psychologist quite intensely when I was here as an athlete and I saw how beneficial that was to my own performance. Not only as an athlete but just generally in life. That has been really motivating and inspiring for me. This stuff is so important and I want to share it with other people so they can also use this and see the benefit of it. Within the next year or so I am going to start looking at further grad schools either Ph.D. or PsyD which is a psychology doctorate degree. That would be more of an applied version of a Ph.D. rather than a research based. I would like to continue coaching in some capacity. Whether that be wherever I end up in school and coaching there or maybe a local club team. But again, who knows. I might end up wanting to pursue coaching full-time and apply for a job next year. Those are my two main goals right now.
GS: How did your experience as a student-athlete shift your career goals?
LM: Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the opportunity to be an athlete at a Big Ten institution. I had no intention of playing sports in college as I wasn't good enough to swim at the D1 level. I thought that was just off the table. But the fact that with this sport at the University of Minnesota you can walk on with no experience and they teach you everything you need to know. Then you are going down the line as a varsity athlete, going against other Big Ten schools. We are the most competitive rowing conference in the country. We are the best and strongest conference there is. Six out of the eight rowing teams in the Big Ten last year went to the NCAAs. It is typical that you only get one or two that go per conference. There were a couple of points during the last year as well that all eight teams in the Big Ten were ranked in the top 20 for D1. Just being part of this program, regardless of where we sit in the Big Ten, has been an amazing experience. What we have access to as student athletes for medical care, travel, and gear is all great. I am so grateful that I have had this experience and I cannot put into words how thankful I am that I have been able to do this. I found what I am really passionate about and I found all these other interests that I probably would not have explored if I didn't walk-on to the novice team my freshman year. I can't express how grateful I am that I found this sport. It has been absolutely amazing. Obviously, with sports psychology, me learning about that and doing research on it, has really changed my mind on what I want to do. I've never felt more sure about a decision and a career goal than that.
GS: What is the best part about working with the Novices?
LM: For me, it has been a big learning experience seeing the other side of the coin and being on the coaching side. I think it has been really cool to see how quickly the progress. As a novice myself, the first couple of months are a huge exponential learning curve. When you first get on the novice team, you don't know what an oar is, you don't know how to hold it, and you don't know how to erg properly. But within two months you are rowing by all eights in the water and it is just amazing to see that progression as a coach. I think as a novice athlete, you don't see that big transformation because you are so focused on trying to improve. It has been really, really rewarding to see that.
Quick Hits:
Would you rather be eight feet tall or three feet tall and why?
Eight feet tall, without hesitation. I am already six feet tall so I am only two feet away. I think it is better for rowing and better for all the things that I am interested in. If I was three feet tall I would just get tripped over. I tend to trip over toddlers myself sometimes. I would definitely rather be eight feet tall.
If you could have any superpower what would it be and why?
That is really hard. I would say either the ability to travel through time or the ability to fly. That would be pretty cool.
What is your coffee order?
Just black coffee. I like dark roast as dark as they come with no cream and no sugar. Plain black coffee or straight espresso is great too.
Favorite food?
I literally eat scrambled eggs and vegetables almost every single day. Any form of an omelet, egg frittata, or just eggs with a bunch of stuff thrown in them. That is definitely my favorite.
Guilty pleasure TV show you watch?
Game of Thrones.
Gopher Sports: What was your experience as a collegiate-athlete at Minnesota like?
Lauren Miller: Truthfully, it was the most positive experience I probably have ever had with any athletics throughout my career. I was a swimmer from the age of six all the way up through high school. I never really had the intention of playing sports in college and didn't really know what rowing was when I got here. As I joined the team, even during my freshman year, I wasn't sure if I was going to stay past my freshman year and continue on to varsity. Now that I have, I am obviously back here to coach and it has completely changed the trajectory of my life in a very, very positive way.
GS: What made you try out as a freshman?
LM: I really didn't know what the sport was when I came here as a freshman. During Welcome Week and the Explore U Fair, the former novice coach came up and just stopped me right in my tracks. He just looked at me and said, "You're tall. Did you play sports in high school?" I told him yes and he asked if I wanted to try rowing. I didn't know what it was but I said sure. I showed up at the meeting and then the rest was history.
GS: How would you describe your coaching style?
LM: In my prior coaching experience I have been working with a lot of high school aged athletes and younger athletes. This is my first time working with this specific group of collegiate aged women. I think in my coaching style, I can be very intense and very passionate. Translating that into something that is useful to someone new to the sport like a novice, I am really having to find myself pulling back a little bit and breaking things down. With my own experience rowing, I have been told by other coaches that I am a student of the sport. I like to learn, collect new information, and I am very analytical. That combined with my excitement about the sport can be a little much for novices, so I have been trying to work with myself on simplifying things and to be as supportive of a coach as I can. I try to make it digestible for them.
GS: What made you want to come back to get your masters degree?
LM: I am a candidate for the Kinesiology M.S. program right now. The kinesiology department has an M.S. option which is basically where you are in a lab doing research and you write a thesis. The M.E.D option is more taking classes and you do a final project. Grad school has been going really well. I really enjoy the people I have been meeting and the connections I have been making in my classes. The nice thing about grad school is that the classes are really small and everyone in the class really wants to be there. When you are leading a discussion or you are having a small group discussion, it is actually a really lively discussion. It has been nice to learn from the older Ph.D. students that I have class with.
GS: What do you like to do outside of rowing?
LM: Athletically, I am also really interested in weight lifting, powerlifting specifically. Along with swimming, I also used to be a competitive triathlete. I really enjoy cycling and running. In my undergrad, I was an art minor so I am into drawing and painting. I do that as a little study break for me. I am involved in the band here at the U of M and I play the saxophone. It is basically a band full of people who were non-music majors and just enjoy playing. They have three or four different ensembles on campus. I like spending time outside hiking and doing all outdoor activities.
GS: What is something you are passionate about?
LM: With my experience as a student-athlete and as a coach when I was out in New York for a year, I get really excited when an athlete or a student has a light bulb moment. When they realize that this is how they do this and they figure it out. I get more excited when I see someone that I am helping or coaching figure something out than I do for my own personal best. That was a big realization for me in the past few years that I really like this and it is something I enjoy. Again, I wasn't sure about it at first because I was planning on going to medical school for the longest time. That was my ten year plan and what I was going to do. As I got into coaching and more involved in rowing I thought it was amazing and so cool what you could do. With the coaching side of things, I am also really interested in sports psychology. That is now what I am planning on doing with my life rather than medical school. Working with the athletes on really subtle things like your mental game in rowing. You are doing these erg tests and you are staring at your split on your number and you are seeing instantaneously how fast you are going and how the little changes you are making affect your speed. That can be very taxing mentally, so I think that in rowing the mental game is especially important. I am trying to draw on my excitement about that to help the athletes that I coach.
GS: What are your future career goals?
LM: As of right now, I'll be applying to Ph.D. programs for psychology next year. Either specifically sports psychology or counseling psychology. I personally worked with a sports psychologist quite intensely when I was here as an athlete and I saw how beneficial that was to my own performance. Not only as an athlete but just generally in life. That has been really motivating and inspiring for me. This stuff is so important and I want to share it with other people so they can also use this and see the benefit of it. Within the next year or so I am going to start looking at further grad schools either Ph.D. or PsyD which is a psychology doctorate degree. That would be more of an applied version of a Ph.D. rather than a research based. I would like to continue coaching in some capacity. Whether that be wherever I end up in school and coaching there or maybe a local club team. But again, who knows. I might end up wanting to pursue coaching full-time and apply for a job next year. Those are my two main goals right now.
GS: How did your experience as a student-athlete shift your career goals?
LM: Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the opportunity to be an athlete at a Big Ten institution. I had no intention of playing sports in college as I wasn't good enough to swim at the D1 level. I thought that was just off the table. But the fact that with this sport at the University of Minnesota you can walk on with no experience and they teach you everything you need to know. Then you are going down the line as a varsity athlete, going against other Big Ten schools. We are the most competitive rowing conference in the country. We are the best and strongest conference there is. Six out of the eight rowing teams in the Big Ten last year went to the NCAAs. It is typical that you only get one or two that go per conference. There were a couple of points during the last year as well that all eight teams in the Big Ten were ranked in the top 20 for D1. Just being part of this program, regardless of where we sit in the Big Ten, has been an amazing experience. What we have access to as student athletes for medical care, travel, and gear is all great. I am so grateful that I have had this experience and I cannot put into words how thankful I am that I have been able to do this. I found what I am really passionate about and I found all these other interests that I probably would not have explored if I didn't walk-on to the novice team my freshman year. I can't express how grateful I am that I found this sport. It has been absolutely amazing. Obviously, with sports psychology, me learning about that and doing research on it, has really changed my mind on what I want to do. I've never felt more sure about a decision and a career goal than that.
GS: What is the best part about working with the Novices?
LM: For me, it has been a big learning experience seeing the other side of the coin and being on the coaching side. I think it has been really cool to see how quickly the progress. As a novice myself, the first couple of months are a huge exponential learning curve. When you first get on the novice team, you don't know what an oar is, you don't know how to hold it, and you don't know how to erg properly. But within two months you are rowing by all eights in the water and it is just amazing to see that progression as a coach. I think as a novice athlete, you don't see that big transformation because you are so focused on trying to improve. It has been really, really rewarding to see that.
Quick Hits:
Would you rather be eight feet tall or three feet tall and why?
Eight feet tall, without hesitation. I am already six feet tall so I am only two feet away. I think it is better for rowing and better for all the things that I am interested in. If I was three feet tall I would just get tripped over. I tend to trip over toddlers myself sometimes. I would definitely rather be eight feet tall.
If you could have any superpower what would it be and why?
That is really hard. I would say either the ability to travel through time or the ability to fly. That would be pretty cool.
What is your coffee order?
Just black coffee. I like dark roast as dark as they come with no cream and no sugar. Plain black coffee or straight espresso is great too.
Favorite food?
I literally eat scrambled eggs and vegetables almost every single day. Any form of an omelet, egg frittata, or just eggs with a bunch of stuff thrown in them. That is definitely my favorite.
Guilty pleasure TV show you watch?
Game of Thrones.
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