New Albany Then And Now: Sports, Growth, And Giving Back
New Albany can look spotless on a postcard, but the real story lives in its people, places, and the way change is managed without losing heart. Lauren, a multi-sport athlete turned local connector, traces how a 90s childhood of fields, woods, and one campus became a mindful, planned city where a roundabout and a lake can shift truck routes, and a preserved mill becomes a brewery instead of rubble. The thread running through this town is memory: Ely House tours, the New Albany Historical Society, and the names etched in Maplewood Cemetery that still surface at ball games and bake sales. Growth may be inevitable, but identity is a choice, and New Albany often chooses to remember.
Athletics shape that identity. Lauren’s path from cross country to basketball to high jump led to an Athletic Hall of Fame induction and a deep respect for team chemistry over raw talent. She recalls when athletes played every season, not just one, and how today’s specialized training changes bodies and culture. Coaching has evolved too, with greater attention to mental health, equity, and the line between tough and toxic. Yet some truths endure: packed student sections can ignite a program, and records exist to inspire the next runner. Youth sports now meet facility constraints that a growing district must solve—another track, safer routes, and smarter scheduling—because logistics decide who participates, and who quits.
Community continuity lives in details: ordering taco pizza from Eagles after decades away; debating whether it’s Bevelheimer or Bevelheimer; finding the first school site across from Cedarbrook; and remembering Tom Skaggs, an athlete whose porch chats taught more than stats. Lauren’s storytelling makes geography personal, tying neighborhoods like North of Woods and the Hamlet to everyday life, property values, and walkability. These debates aren’t nostalgia for its own sake; they’re how a place measures what to preserve as it invites new families and businesses. It’s why the campus model still feels intimate even as class sizes quadruple, and why alumni return with kids who become ball boys and water girls, learning responsibility beside their heroes.
Service gives that intimacy a future. Lauren stepped into real estate not to chase square footage but to fund impact. Her first year birthed She Rises, an annual women-centered event with a clear purpose: raise money locally, showcase women’s resilience, and turn support into checks for organizations the community can see. Partnering with Buddy Up For Life made donations tangible and faces familiar. After the loss of a child close to her family, the mission widened to children’s health and Nationwide Children’s Hospital—because seasons of grief demand action, not slogans. The work ties back to a simple line she keeps close: service to others is the rent you pay for your room on earth. In New Albany, rent is due every day—in a preserved building, a safer road, a grant for a child, or a hand on a shoulder at a game. That’s how a fast-growing town keeps feeling like home.
