It all started with joining a football team in the third grade for Lauryn Carlton. The strength Carlton built up from the sport followed her throughout high school as she continued to be successful on the field. But when she received a phone call from Elon track and field coach Laura Iguane during her junior year, she didn’t know that football would lead her to be on another field — throwing discus, shot put and hammer in track and field.
“She actually saw me throwing in high school, and she saw potential. … My form was not that good in high school. I just kind of muscled it out there,” Carlton said. “But she saw potential.”
The junior grew up in Burlington and attended Western Alamance High School — just a few miles from Elon University’s campus. Carlton said she’d anticipated that if she continued with a sport in college, it would be soccer — not football or track and field. But when she accepted Elon’s offer, she didn’t realize that she would continue to share her strength and success with her hometown.
Carlton was named a Colonial Athletic Association champion in spring 2021 when she reached her personal best record of 45.36 meters in the discus throw. That same year was filled with other personal records — hammer throw with a toss of 49.51 meters at the VertKlasse Meeting, season-best throw of 13.02 meters in shot put at the James Madison University Invitational and first place in the shot put at the Wendy's Teal Seahawk Invitational with a throw of 12.82 meters.
Now, in her spring 2022 season, Carlton said she is just trying to improve and possibly reach new personal records.
“This year, I'm looking to score points for the team so we can get a conference ring. I personally don't really care what I place, I more so care if I get better personally,” Carlton said.
Iguane, who has worked with many athletes in the past, also has personal throwing experience. A native of Latvia, Iguane was the Latvian National Champion in both the discus and hammer. She still holds the Latvia national record in the hammer, and in 2021, she represented her home country in the hammer throw at the Olympics games in Tokyo. Her throwing experience has allowed her to become closer to Carlton as a coach.
“I like working with her and I recruited her. She works hard and she dedicates her time. She wants to get better and she doesn’t have the attitude of ‘Oh well, whatever happens, happens.’” Iguane said. “She really puts in time and effort and thought into what we want to accomplish.”
Working with Carlton for three years now, Iguane said that coaching Carlton goes beyond guiding her on the field, and she is different from other athletes in some ways.
“When I come across an athlete on campus, or for track and field specifically, I look for certain qualities, and one is coachability. She has a great coachability,” Iguane said. “The other one's dedication. She’s dedicated to the process of succeeding individually and with the team.”
A recent success so far this year comes from the JDL DMR Invitational in February 2022, where she was second in the throws with a toss of 17.69 meters. She was also a runner-up in the shot put at her throw of 13.41m. Carlton said she hopes to place in the top three at the championship, or just score points for the team if at all possible.
As she continues to work hard, especially in the fields and facilities close to home, Carlton said it’s all about how she can move forward — even when it’s easy to compare herself to other athletes in this sport.
“In track and field in general, you kind of know what you're going to place already, just because it's so cut and dry. You know everybody else's personal records. You know how they've been throwing, it's not really subjective at all,” Carlton said. “It's like they're better than I am, but can I move up? And so we'll see what happens this year.”