When Laura Colombell walked out of Coach Fred Binggeli’s office at the end of her first year at Virginia in 1988, she knew that she was off the track team.
As head coach of track and field, Binggeli met with each student athlete at the end of the year to discuss their performance, but Colombell, now Laura Marshall, had not expected that this conversation might mean the end of her collegiate running career.
“I was thinking that there was going to be discussion about next year,” Marshall said. “And I think, in his mind, he assumed that I was no longer going to be on the team … he started off by thanking me for coming out and just talking about how ‘Division I sports isn’t for everyone. It’s a huge commitment.’”…