Lauren Van Kleunen
On October 1st, I got the opportunity to speak with Lauren Van Kleunen, of Marquette basketball, about her life inside and outside of the sport. Lauren is a graduate student with an undergraduate degree in Public Relations and Marketing. She did know what she wanted to with her life until Freshman year, where she experienced a big change in her life that she did not expect. Her first year she was Red Shirted because she got sick with blood clots in her lungs. With the treatment she was going through, it was unsafe for her to even come close to a basketball court. She needed a backup plan and focused her attention to her love of sports and coaching. She took her passion of sports and focused her major of Public Relations in that direction. In graduate school she is studying media studies and sports leadership certification. She hopes to one day coach her own basketball team.
Balancing sports on top of the rigorous academics of Marquette can be a difficult task. According to Lauren, the biggest thing to focus on is time management. With her graduate classes as a Junior, her workload is a little different. In her current classes she has more time to work on both aspects of her life, basketball and academics. Overall, she is here to play basketball and attain an education. Both aspects of her college life are very important to her. The basketball team also has access to lot of resources such as tutors and mandatory academic meetings. No one in athletics can fail, according to Lauren, the resources around them won’t let you.
Lauren chose to play basketball at Marquette because of their reputation. She liked the aspect of both Marquette, the prestigious University, and Marquette the Golden Eagles. She saw that Marquette basketball was on the come-up and she wanted to be a part of something that would make it.
When asked if the team had any pregame rituals she proceeded to tell me their routine from last year. The team would always dance before the game and get that pregame hype in, along with screaming the Prince of Bel Air theme song.
The basketball team gets to travel to a lot of cool cities, but do they get to explore them or is it all basketball related events? Well, they get to experience a little bit of both. During conference the setup is usually games on Friday and Sunday. That gives them all of Saturday to see the city of New York. Last year they got to see the Lion King and play laser tag as a team.
Lauren was born and raised in Ohio, so obviously there is a little bit of competitiveness when playing teams like Xavier. When coming home it is like a homecoming game, and there is a lot of edge when playing in her home town. When going home to play against Xavier all of her friends and family come to cheer her on. It also gives her a little bit of an edge when she plays teams that also recruited her like Bulter.
Going from high school basketball to the college level is very eye opening according to Lauren. The difference in speed and strength is the most awakening thing. There are some grown women out there. Understanding size and from an IQ standpoint how to play against them is very important. Speed is at a very different level and you can never be ready for it until you get into the actual game.
Lauren’s biggest role models are her Mom, Dad and her brother. Her parents worked their butts off to provide for her and truly showed her what hard work looks like. Her brother doesnt let anything take him out or define him. He is very good at pushing through anything he is doing.
Lauren is a very relaxed person, but she also likes to have fun and enjoy life because it can be taken away fast. She considers every day is a blessing with the experience that she is having. There can be hard days but what she is doing is a great opportunity. She loves to laugh and make a lot of jokes. She likes to consider herself funny. Lauren would consider herself a big team player. She tends to worry more about others than herself. It happens a lot in basketball because she wants everyone else to do well. Lauren loves Marquette and has a lot of pride for this school. Marquette is in her blood and will always be very close to her heart. Her family is very proud of her and will support her in whatever she does. They are willing to do anything for her to make her happy.