Lauren Ford was on the floor of Allen Arena as the Lipscomb volleyball team won its sixth ASUN Conference Tournament Championship. She was part of two trips to the NCAA Tournament and one ASUN title as a player, but this time around she was on the sidelines working with Neil Solondz as part of the ESPN3 broadcast team. Ford graduated from Lipscomb and then spent a year at North Florida playing beach volleyball. She is back in Nashville working for a medical company while waiting to hear about her acceptance to medical school. She spent some time talking with Lipscombsports.com as Lipscomb heads to her home state of Kansas for the NCAA Tournament First and Second Rounds.
What years did you play at Lipscomb? Who were your coaches?
"I played from 2011 through the 2014 season and I graduated in 2015.
"Brandon Rosenthal was my coach. The assistant coaches were Samantha Sullivan my freshman year, Jeff Wismer my sophomore year and Billy Ebel and Ann Armes my junior and senior years.”
What is your fondest athletic memory at Lipscomb?
“I have plenty. Part of it is just the girls on the team and coming in day after day and competing with them in practice.
“My freshman year we won the conference championship against Belmont and killed them in three. Going onto to play in the NCAA Tournament that same year is another great memory.
“Also a huge moment was getting the at-large NCAA bid my senior year. We were all at Brandon’s house. It was just the team. It was purely for us more than anything. It was unbelievable being with those girls and realizing we were going to have another chance to play.
“I don’t think we were that confident we were going to get an at-large bid. We were very hopeful, and we had that glimmer of hope, but I don’t think it was a shoo-in.
“When we heard our name it was an eruption of cheering. We were overjoyed. It was ridiculous excitement.”
What was it like as a freshman to be part of an NCAA Tournament team?
“It was fairly overwhelming. I got lucky with the outside (hitter) spot. We were lacking outside hitters. Whether I was ready for it or not that was the position I had to play on the court and that was the position that needed to be filled.
“I remember before going into the first tournament of the season in Houston that Brandon had been on me the entire preseason. I was thinking there is no way this coach likes me. The day before we leave for the tournament he calls me up and tells me, `hey, you have been doing a good job’ after I had been torn apart the last two weeks of preseason.
“There was a lot of awe when we got to NCAA Tournament time. It was hard to believe we got that far and were part of it.”
Who had the biggest influence on you during your athletic career at Lipscomb? How?
“Brandon. He was the coach pushing you every day. He was the one sending you reminders to tell the team this, make sure you do that or we need to be wearing this.
“The way he runs things is a very big shaper in how I do things now. I was a captain for three of the years I was here. As a sophomore in meetings I would hear what he had to say and I have come accustomed to doing things correctly, efficiently and all the way through. He is very detailed oriented.”
What makes this program so good?
“The teammates that don’t play. You can’t have a deep roster and a deep bench without having players who don’t play regularly. And they are great players.
“Jordan Huston didn’t see the court a lot but when she was asked to play she stepped up and played. That was the role she had on the team. She understood it better than anyone else did.
“It is about understanding your role as a teammate and how much you contribute in practice. Billy Ebel (associate head coach) and I were talking about this the other day. The `dream team’, the B-side, wins matches in practice the majority of the time. That is how the starters got better was by having the B-side beat us. It made everybody better.”
What is your fondest non-athletic memory from your time at Lipscomb?
“I took an honors anatomy and physiology class my junior year with Dr. Phil Choate. There were five of us in the class. We each had our own patients. There was information in folders and we would get to decide what was going to be the next move for that patient – what scans we wanted to run and what tests we wanted to do. That kind of opened up my mind to a new career opportunity.”
Why did you decide to pursue medical school?
“My degree is in exercise science. I decided to pursue medical school my senior year. Between Dr. Phil Choate and Dr. Alan Bradshaw, a physics professor, they kind of shaped my mind that I didn’t have to stick with my original plan to be an occupational therapist. They told me I was very capable of doing more if I wished to do that.”
What is the most valuable thing you gained or learned from your time at Lipscomb?
“That it does matter the people you surround yourself with. Going from Lipscomb to North Florida for my fifth year was very different. They recruit a different kind of person. People who want to go to Lipscomb aren’t necessarily the ones going to a state school.
“You want the people you surround yourself with to have the same goals, aspirations and values that you do.”
Why did you choose to attend Lipscomb?
“I think I committed May of my junior year of high school. It was the only D-I school I visited and the only D-I school that offered me a scholarship. I was from Kansas and I wanted to stay close to home, but everyone told me I was too short.
“But what really drew me here was the community. Brandon has created a family at Lipscomb that other schools broadcasted that they had, but I didn’t believe it and I didn’t see it. From all of my past teammates in high school and club who went on to play at D-I schools none of them had the experience like I had at Lipscomb.”
Who was your favorite professor? Why?
“Dr. Ruth Henry in kinesiology. She was very down to earth and very easy to relate to.
Dr. Karen Robichaud, who is also in kinesiology. She is hilarious. She is very personable and willing to communicate. She was not afraid of a pregnant pause. She is so real and puts out there what is on her mind. I really appreciated that.”
Where do you live now?
“I am living in Nashville.”
Who is your employer? What is your occupation? What does your position entail?
“I have turned in my applications for medical school and am waiting to hear back. I have interviewed at KU so far.
“I work for Premier Scribes at St. Thomas Midtown and St. Thomas Rutherford. We do the documentation for physicians. My role there is operations manager. I do all of the hiring, training, scheduling and the day-to-day operations.”
My email address is lford.premier@gmail.com.
