Donor Stories

As a double Hoo, former Virginia student-athlete, and a current VAF Board Member, Lauren holds a strong passion for UVA, student-athletes, and helping people to become the best versions of themselves.

Lauren Lacey's decision to attend UVA was a simple one. In her words, “it was fairly local,” as Lacey is from Northern Virginia. She said, “it was a great school,” and it's “where my friends were going… I'm one of those 'make it simple, stupid people, so I didn't apply to a bunch of colleges.” Lacey didn't plan to be a student-athlete, either. But as a first year looking for activities that matched her high-school resume, she decided to walk-on to the track & field team.

After spending her first year as a shot putter, Lacey wanted to experience life as a regular student but that only lasted two years. She walked back on to the track & field team for her fourth year on Grounds. The following season, UVA offered the hammer throw in competitions, where Lacey used her remaining year of eligibility. After obtaining her undergraduate degree in Psychology & Sociology in 1995, she enrolled at the University of Virginia School of Law while continuing to participate in track & field.

A 1998 graduate of Virginia Law, Lacey did a clerkship in Baltimore City before moving into medical malpractice and pharmaceutical defense. She started an in-house position with the Hershey Company in 2005, rising through progressive roles during her decade there. After spending three years at US Foods, Lauren Lacey returned to Hershey, where she now works as Deputy General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer.

Lacey credits her UVA experience with shaping the person she is today. Outside of athletics, she highlights the opportunities she had to engage with other backgrounds and perspectives. This comes in addition to the supportive, passionate culture present on Grounds; “the openness, the collegiality of 'we're all here to learn'… without the competitiveness that you hear about at other schools.” That idea of “growing collectively” is part of what made UVA so special for Lacey. Much of what she took away, however, came from her experience with track & field.

Lacey argues that college athletics is unique because of its enduring influence on participants. While earlier athletic experiences have their respective impacts, she claims that “if you're a college athlete… it tends to be more of who you are as an adult.” For Lacey, that influence manifests in the form of self-assessment. She discusses the annual self-evaluations she conducts, along with the goals she sets, that ensure her professional success; “like you would every year in track, you'd say, 'I did well on this… I fell back in these areas, I need to focus on that, and here's what I tweak for the next year…'” Track & field taught Lacey the importance of incremental improvements. “NCAA Championships don't happen overnight,” she says.

Speaking on collegiate student-athletes in general, Lacey claims they are “coachable, self-assured, and self-motivated.” Skills like these take long periods of time to build, if they can be built at all. Lacey says these are qualities that “any employer would be looking for today.” She firmly believes that college sports build strong character as they come with this “level of dedication, performance, practice: striving for the best and finding it within yourself.”

Lacey supports the Virginia Athletics Foundation so that she can grant other possible college athletes the same transformational experience that she had with UVA Track & Field. She describes VAF as “the engine… that fuels people who are both going to be leaders and impacting others in a positive way in the future.”

Lacey knows that UVA athletics builds the same values in all its student-athletes that track & field instilled within her. She points out that there are students who, without these resources, would be “losing out on their opportunity to be great for themselves, their family, and their communities.” Even more so, the “communities and people who will be impacted later on are losing out on their gift.” Through her support of VAF, Lauren Lacey ensures that UVA student-athletes have those opportunities to develop essential traits, to learn how to lead, and to one-day make a difference.