Lauren Beers Stanton

About Me:

I am 26 years old and live in Birmingham, Alabama. I was a competitive gymnast for 17 years where I competed at the highest level of national competition in the USA as well as for an NCAA Division I program.

My career began when I was 6 years old after I watched the 2000 Olympics and told my mom, "I want to do that!" Soon after I started, I was placed into the competitive team program where I progressed through the levels fairly quickly. This came with plenty of struggles as well as successes that helped develop me as an athlete and a person. During my younger years and high school career, I competed as a level 10 gymnast from the time I was 10 years old until I graduated high school. I qualified for the JO National Championship every year in which I was eligible and during the other years, I qualified and competed as an international elite gymnast.

From 2008 to 2011 I competed as an international elite where I tried to qualify onto the US National Team. Although I wasn't ever selected, I competed with some of the greatest gymnasts of that time and learned so much from them. In 2012 I graduated from high school and started attending the University of Alabama where I competed in all but one meet of my career.

During my time at the university, I was a 7 time All-American, a 4-time Scholastic All-American, a 3 time Elite 90 Award winner, CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year Winner, SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, a 4 time NCAA Super Six qualifier for a team where we placed no lower than 4th, and we won 2 SEC Championships. It was an amazing experience!

In addition to academics and athletics, I participated in the SAAC program where I held offices during my junior and senior year, was named to the SEC Community Service team 2 times, and was the SEC Brad Davis Community Service award winner my senior year. I completed my undergraduate degree in three years and during my fourth year of competition, I completed my first master's degree. After my NCAA eligibility expired in 2016, I stayed with the Gymnastics team for an additional year as a student coach while working on my MBA. In total, I completed my undergraduate degree in Exercise Science, a master's in Sports Management, and in 2018, I graduated with my MBA and entered into the workforce as a Business Intelligence Manager.

Although I enjoyed working in the analytics field, my heart continued to be drawn back into athletics. In July of 2019, I accepted a full-time job as the director of a gymnastics program.

Since then I have been coaching and mentoring young athletes full time and enjoying every second of it! In addition to working with kids, my passions are animals and anything outdoors! I LOVE to hike and spend time with my dogs outside.

During my career, I had a lot of physical struggles. In total, I have had nine surgeries related to gymnastics injuries. Of those nine, six were related to a condition in my elbows called Osteochondritis Dissecans.

I first experienced symptoms when I was around 9 years old. We went to the doctors many times who told me I just had tendinitis and that it would go away on its own.

When I was 11, I was practicing one day and my elbow gave out on me. I visited my primary doctor and he told me that I wouldn't be able to do gymnastics anymore. As you can imagine, being told my dream of becoming a high-level gymnast was over was a crushing blow. I had so many dreams and goals that I still wanted to achieve.

Thankfully, my parents were super supportive and we continued to travel all around the northeast looking for a doctor who would be able to treat me. After multiple months of searching, we found a doctor in Indianapolis (we lived in Pennsylvania) that said he could help me!

During this time, I struggled with staying motivated and continuing to look at the positives of the situation. Finally, almost three months later I was able to get an appointment. We drove the twelve hours out to the office and began the process of trying to figure out what was wrong. This was when I was first introduced to my condition. He said that although the treatment was going to be hard, I would still be able to participate in gymnastics when I was done. I was so relieved! My prayers had been answered.

This appointment would lead to a second diagnosis in my other arm and a total of six surgeries on my elbows over the course of my career. Although each surgery and recovery was tough, I knew that I had goals I wanted to achieve. This drive and need to be mentally tough helped me to push through the 4+ month recoveries.

My condition definitely held me back from some of my goals, but it gave me a different perspective on my sport. I had dedicated almost every day of my life to this sport, but it could all be taken away in a second. Making sure that my identity was in something other than my sport was more important than ever, for me this was my faith. I was no longer "Lauren the gymnast", I was "Lauren who does gymnastics". This new perspective allowed me to learn how to push through adversity, no matter how hard it might be, and also showed me how to balance all the other priorities in life.