Bendigo to Baltimore

Bendigo toBaltimore

This talented teen has always stood head and shoulders above her classmates. Now she’s reaching new heights on the volleyball court, playing in the elite US college system.

By Raelee Tuckerman

As a child, being tall was a bit of a burden for Lauren Cox. But at 19, it’s become one of her biggest assets. Stretching the tape measure to 193cm, or 6ft 4in on the old scale, Lauren’s stature and skills combined have seen her flourish as a volleyballer and grow in confidence, too. The former Bendigo girl recently accepted a full athletic scholarship to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County – a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division One school and the reigning America East Conference volleyball champions. She began her UMBC freshman year in August. “It was very overwhelming when I was younger, being a foot taller than everyone else,” Lauren says from her dormitory after an evening training session. “I remember being at a theme park when I was five and the ride operator said I was a threat to the other kids because I was so much bigger than them, and that I’d have to come back later with the 10-year-olds. Mum said, ‘no way’. “All through primary school, I was taller than all the boys so it was a bit strange. But now it’s such an advantage – I’m the tallest on my team and everyone wishes they had my height so it’s been a blessing in disguise. I’m grateful for it now and wouldn’t want it any other way.” Lauren’s life is a whirlwind of lifting weights, individual and team practice, travel, games, recovery sessions and study. When she spoke to Bendigo Magazine, the rookie middle blocker and right side hitter was about to embark on an away-game road trip to New York. “It’s very full-on. We leave early Thursday morning for Albany, train that day and play on Friday; travel to Binghamton on Saturday and play there Sunday; get home around midnight Sunday and I have a class at 10am on Monday. There’s no time to sit around!” She’s one of seven internationals on the UMBC Retrievers’ volleyball roster, alongside athletes from Serbia, Croatia, Italy, Poland, Turkey and Bulgaria. “It’s comforting knowing there are six other girls on the team who understand what it’s like to be so far away from home and not be able to have your parents just take a flight and watch you play on the weekend,” she says. Lauren was a squad swimmer and played netball and basketball before taking up volleyball for fun as a co-curricular activity at Girton Grammar in year seven in 2015. Before long, she was invited to join the Bendigo Academy of Sport and her career quickly took off, much to her surprise. “I’d only been playing properly for a few months and my coaches suggested I try out for the School Sport Victoria under-16 state

team, just for the experience, no expectations,” she recalls. “But I ended up being selected as an emergency, which was a huge shock. Later that year I trialled for Volleyball Victoria’s under-15 team and, very surprisingly, made the main team, went to nationals and won a bronze medal. I definitely wasn’t expecting any of that.” Lauren went on to represent SSV at school nationals and Volleyball Victoria at the Australian under-17 championships, winning silver at both and being named in the All Star Seven in her bottom-age and top-age years. From there, she earned a berth in the Australian under-17 squad and travelled to Thailand in 2018 for the Asian Youth Championships. Two other events were pivotal to Lauren’s journey from Bendigo to Baltimore. In 2016, she was one of several local volleyball kids asked to play in the background during a media promotion for a match at Bendigo Stadium involving the national senior women’s Volleyroos team, then coached by Shannon Winzer. “Shannon saw me hitting around and contacted the Bendigo Academy of Sport to see if I wanted to play State League for her club, Heidelberg. So I started travelling to Melbourne, twice a week for training and for a game on Saturdays. “One of the Volleyroos who was also there that day (Jaimee-Lee Morrow) ended up being my team-mate three years down the road, which was crazy. I’d been so excited to get a photo with her that day in Bendigo and there I was playing alongside her.

Photo courtesy Volleyball Australia

Photo courtesy Ian Feldmann

Photo courtesy Ian Feldmann

Photo courtesy Volleyball Australia “Shannon later offered me a place at the Volleyball Australia Centre of Excellence in Canberra (now the Australian Volleyball Academy) and I moved there in 2019, studying year 11 and 12 at Radford College and living with a homestay family. I was only 16 and the youngest in the program.” The other defining moment was moving to Ballarat Grammar after year nine and being mentored by former national assistant coach Ross Sullivan, a PE teacher. He helped Lauren navigate the college system and start preparing for scholarship applications, staying in touch after she went to Canberra. “He made sure I was doing the right subjects, getting the right grades, reaching out to different colleges, making highlight videos. There’s over 300 teams in the NCAA division one alone, and Ross helped me narrow it down to where do I want to live, do they have what I want to study, what’s the team like, the culture, do I get a good feel from the coaches?” There were countless emails back and forth with potential suitors, sending game footage and playing CVs, maintaining communication especially when COVID prevented Lauren from travelling to the US to visit colleges and meet various coaching staff, as would normally occur. “My UMBC coach said for my year they were looking at 5000 athletes and they recruited five of us. Once you’re on their radar, it’s your responsibility to keep up the communication because they have so many athletes contacting them that if you stop, they could forget about you.

“COVID made it really hard, particularly being an international athlete. We weren’t playing so it was hard to get film and when we started back last year, I got injured and was out for just over two months, so I couldn’t send them anything new. Things dried up for a bit and I considered I might have to wait until 2022 because I wasn’t getting as many offers.” But UMBC came calling and, after emails, phone and Zoom contact with coaches and team members, Lauren was offered a full scholarship. She loves Baltimore, situated between Philadelphia and Washington DC on America’s east coast. With a population six times larger than Bendigo, it’s different from her early life in Ravenswood with mum Nicole and sister Georgia (a state basketballer) but she says there’s a real community feel around her suburban campus College athletes are almost minor celebrities in US university towns, with music, fanfare and the occasional fireworks accompanying games, which are televised live and covered at length in print. “Volleyball here is just another level. We have great facilities; we get all the media coverage; we have a hype video they play before our home games; they’ve even made keyboard GIFs of all the team members. “We can be walking down the street and someone will come up and ask, ‘do you play volleyball for UMBC, good luck with the game’. Crowds come and watch us and I think it’s really cool we reach much further than just the UMBC campus – we reach into the community around us.” Lauren aims to make the senior Volleyroos team during her four years at college and hopes to secure a European professional contract after graduating. Her end goal is the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. But she won’t forget her early days in the sport she came to quite late compared to her college peers. She’s had to grow into her long limbs, develop her co-ordination, learn new skills and, most recently, add strength to her frame and power to her game. “My height got me noticed at the start, but you can’t just be the tall kid. You have to perform out on the court, and I’ve had to work very hard to get here.”

Photo courtesy Volleyball Australia