Gators Freshman Brasure Makes Instant Impact
Thursday, October 30, 2014 | Cross Country
By RJ Schaffer
GatorZone.com Writing Intern
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Records are meant to be broken. It may take months, years or even decades for new waves of athletes to surpass the plateaus set by their peers of yesteryear, but eventually the record books get rewritten.
It's often the decorated seniors or battle-tested veterans who are the ones who bring down school records that have stood for generations. For them, it takes years of hard work to get into the record books. For Lauren Brasure, it took only a month on campus.
Brasure, one of four freshmen on Florida's cross country team, has accomplished feats that are unheard of for most cross country athletes, let alone someone who hasn't even completed a fall semester of college.
Earlier this season in the Gators' only home meet of the season—the Mountain Dew Invitational on Sept. 20—Brasure introduced herself to the orange and blue faithful by not only winning the event by 10 seconds with a time of 16:45.93, but by running the fastest 5k in history by a UF runner at the Mark Bostick Golf Course.
“Honestly, it was really surprising,” Brasure said. “I don't know. It was kind of a lot to take in at once. It was a record for myself, anyways. To be compared to big-time, college athletes definitely was an honor, and it boosted my confidence going into the next few big races we had.”
Fastest 5k in the history of a decorated program like Florida? That may be enough to satisfy most runners. It turned out to be the opening act for Brasure.
Two weeks later she competed in the Paul Short Run on Oct. 4 and again logged herself a spot in UF's record books. Her time of 20:27.00 was the ninth-fastest 6k in Florida history, the fastest of any freshman in Florida's history, and also the fifth-fastest time in the Southeastern Conference.
“She's extremely coachable,” Gators coach Paul Spangler said Monday. "She had a very, very good coach in high school. A lot of athletes get accustomed to what's working for them in the past … she was an athlete that came in and her mileage actually decreased and for some athletes that can be scary.”
That coach would be Ben Watson, who was Brasure's running mentor at Rockford (Mich.) High School and someone whom Brasure said has had a “tremendous” impact on her running career. She said Watson's pushing and belief in her has led her to achieve goals she never thought possible. Watson even helped show Brasure she could move from the snow to the humidity of Florida and still succeed at a high level.
While the records are a nice way to start Brasure's career, the time to prove the worth of those records is coming sooner than later. The Gators finished first in their first two meets of the season, but that dipped to eighth place at the Paul Short Run and, most recently, 38th out of 38 teams in the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational on Oct. 17.
The performance in Wisconsin can be seen as an outlier for the season or bad omens for what could come in the postseason. Regardless, one thing is clear: Brasure has a chance to directly impact what position the Gators land on.
Brasure said going into the SEC Championships -- they start Friday in Tuscaloosa, Ala. -- she is going to try and focus on taking any pressure off herself and simply try to enjoy the event rather than get anxious. Based on how her teammates see her, that shouldn't be much of a problem.
“Lauren is very dedicated to what she does, but she also knows to have a good time,” teammate Taylor Tubbs said. “She's really enjoying being at Florida, and she's really adapting to college lifestyle. She's fun to be around and she's also a really great teammate.”
Tubbs said her success comes from all of the natural talent she has, which is ironic because Brasure said growing up she tried multiple sports. She admitted she wasn't very good at most, but added that she never expected to get a scholarship out of running.
The scholarship did come, and soon after came all of the aforementioned records. Now, Brasure has the challenge of translating her personal goals into success for the team.
“I definitely want to help my team get to Nationals,” she said. “I'm feeling great and our hope our team can make it there. That's my number one priority.”
