Bucknell coach helps put Portage on collegiate map
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Lauren Shaffer, one of the most decorated athletes in Portage history, had her high school career come to a sudden end months before she expected it to when she suffered a torn ACL during the 2021-2022 basketball season.
Just more than two weeks prior, Shaffer's teammate Maddy Hudak also suffered a torn ACL.
Thanks in part to Bucknell track and field coach Kevin Donner's special connection to Portage and Cambria County in general, Shaffer and Hudak will be wearing the same uniform again -- this time as Division I athletes -- for the Bison when the next school year starts.
Donner's 'first' recruit
Donner, a native of Detroit, Michigan, came to Loretto in 1995 as the first cross country and track and field coach at Saint Francis University. He coached there for six years, building an impressive program rather quickly.
"When I was at Saint Francis, I really fell in love with the District 5, 6 and 9 rural areas," Donner said. "Along with the WPIAL, those were my main recruiting areas at Saint Francis, and we got pretty good. As a matter of fact, we got really good. We were winning Northeast Conference championships and had a couple All-Americans. (Northern Bedford graduate) Brian Sell ran for me, and I was just at his induction into the Bedford County Hall of Fame."
More important than any of the athletic success was another connection Donner made during his time at Saint Francis.
"My biggest connection to District 6 was that I married a girl from Portage, Amy Miko," Donner said. "She played basketball at Portage and was a Mathematics professor at Saint Francis, and that's how we met. We got married, and I spend a fair amount of time in the town of Portage. I guess you might say she was my first recruit from Portage."
Donner left Saint Francis for Bucknell in 2001. While he recruited players from District 6 and the surrounding areas over the years, Portage was a school known more for its football and baseball. That started to change when Maddy's father, Lance Hudak, took over some of the girls and boys athletic programs at the school, including track and field.
"Because I make frequent trips (to Portage), I got to know a lot of Amy's friends, and Lance is one of those," Donner said. "They graduated together from Portage, and during many years, Portage was never really known for track and field and cross country. As a matter of fact, I don't remember ever recruiting anybody from there when I was at Saint Francis or in my first 18 years at Bucknell from Portage. It was a very low-profile program, but then Lance started coaching it, and he's a pretty intense guy that likes to win. All of a sudden, a few pretty good athletes were coming out of Portage, and track and field and cross country became relevant."
Shaffer breaks ground
That's when Donner became aware of an athlete who was putting the Mustangs on the map across the state in cross country and track.
"I noticed a young lady named Lauren Shaffer, and I followed her career," Donner said. "When she became a junior, I started recruiting her. She was pretty high on my list. She got a lot of state medals, and her times were very good. We recruited her, and she fit our academic profile. We had some scholarship money, and we made it happen."
Shaffer picked Bucknell over Bowling Green, Duquesne, Pittsburgh and Penn State and went on to finish as the runner-up in the 2021 PIAA Class 1A cross country championship race.
But on Dec. 17, in a game against Berlin Brothersvalley, Shaffer went up for a rebound, came down wrong and tore her ACL. Shaffer's loyalty to Bucknell and Donner, the first program to recruit her, was returned after her injury.
"After she committed to us, she blew her knee out," Donner said. "We don't pull scholarships at Bucknell, and I don't believe in it. We are Division I, but we're not an athletic-factory-type Division I school like in the SEC or the Big Ten where if you go there, you're going there for athletics. At Bucknell, you can be a student."
Donner told Shaffer she made a commitment to the Bison for four years, not four months and encouraged her to take as much time as she needed to get healthy.
"It was really amazing that they cared for me as a person and not just as an athlete," Shaffer said. "It was really heartwarming to see that they saw me beyond an athlete, and it wasn't all about numbers. They liked who I was. That was the main part for me. I was able to come here, even with an injury, and it was a lot of fun. Even though I wasn't competing in cross country, I was still with the team all the time working my way back. I was running maybe a couple miles at that point but still part of the team atmosphere."
Another life preserver
As Shaffer worked her way back from injury at Bucknell, Hudak tried to do the same during her senior year at Portage.
Though she got through basketball season and helped the Lady Mustangs earn the No. 2 seed in the District 6 Class 2A playoffs and set a new personal best in the javelin during track and field, it wasn't the ending to her high school career she had imagined.
Again, Donner was there lending a helping hand.
"They offered me a spot on the track and field team at Bucknell when I still wasn't even cleared," Hudak said. "Once I got that motivation from them, I pushed through physical therapy so hard. It gave me that confidence that I needed. Obviously going through something so big, some athletes don't come back the same or 100 percent, but through their words, it gave me the confidence that I needed and helped me get through the remainder of my senior year. I really needed that."
Hudak doesn't have the career accolades of Shaffer, but Donner sees a lot of potential that hasn't had the chance to shine.
"Maddy is in a unique situation being a javelin thrower," Donner said. "Her first year was the COVID-19 year, so there was no track. Her sophomore year, she threw pretty well and threw around 112 feet or so, which is pretty good. Her junior year, she blew her knee out. In her senior year, like with Lauren, after that surgery, you can do things in eight months, but you're not the same."
Having the chance to not only compete at Bucknell but with her former teammate was a dream come true for Hudak.
"At the time, I was battling physically with myself," Hudak said. "I was just trying to get back. I really secretly idolized Lauren, and never in a million years did I think that I would bounce back to become a Division I athlete after undergoing such a big surgery nor be at a level, obviously within a different field, with Lauren Shaffer. Growing up with her, idolizing her and being best friends with her, I always thought the world of her. I never put myself in the same league as her, so it's surreal. I'm very proud of how far I have come, but I love that I have that comfort person, and I'm excited to always have her by my side whenever I'm at Bucknell."
It's a path Hudak never imagined and knows probably wouldn't have been possible without Donner's faith in her and her father's development of the Portage track and field program.
"If you were to tell me when I was in elementary school that I would be going to college for track, I would probably laugh in your face," Hudak said. "I grew up watching my dad coach basketball and knew that's what I'm supposed to do -- be a great basketball player and compete for Portage. But the way that my dad developed our program since my older sister (Lauren) started our cross country team when she was still in high school, it's so neat to see more kids coming out and display talent Portage hasn't seen in a long time."
Patience is a virtue
Despite taking a chance on athletes from an unknown school like Portage, Donner was willing to be patient with both Shaffer and Hudak -- something they both appreciated -- and in the end helped them regain their confidence.
"One thing I noticed about an ACL surgery is that you are back in eight or nine months, but you're not the same until about a year and a half," Donner said. "Your timing is off, your balance is off and your confidence is off. We just started to see (Shaffer) turn the corner right around the end of April and early May, which is the very end of our track season. She just started to turn the corner and ran a couple strong relays for us, but then the season ended.
"With that said, she ended on a high note, so it was basically a positive experience for her in her first year. I think she's now over the hump. She has her confidence back, she has her balance back, she's healthy and I believe we're going to see a very good year this coming year from her."
Shaffer, who is spending the summer at Bucknell doing research, is already training for next season.
"I ran one cross country meet last year," Shaffer said. "I knew it wasn't me. I ran it just to say I came back from injury and did it. This year, I'm excited to have a full summer of training. I have already started, and I'm feeling healthy and feeling good. I ran indoor and outdoor track season, and I really felt good at the end. Coach Donner said to me after we ran a (3,200-meter relay) that I ran an 800-meter PR, even including high school. It was the first time I went sub-2:20 all year, and then I improved it to 2:16. He told me how strong I looked, and it really got my confidence up. I'm so excited to have a year with no interruptions and do the best I can."
Hudak went through similar struggles last season.
"Even when I do workouts to this day, my injured leg is still more sore than the other one," Hudak said. "I know there's some weakness there, and I know there's a lot of room for improvement even though I got through the season."
Donner said an ACL injury can be even more debilitating to a thrower than a runner.
"You are planting pretty hard with both legs and crossing over, not running straight ahead," Donner said. "You're basically running sideways, and then the torque that occurs when you plant your leg might make it tougher than sprinting or running to come back from because of the movement."
Donner is optimistic about Hudak's chances to succeed once she begins work with throws coach Ryan Protzman and gets a chance to enter a season fully healthy and learn a little more about technique.
"We're very excited about having her, because she only has two years of experience under her belt," Donner said. "She's a very good student. We have a very good throws coach, and we have some very good javelin throwers on our team that will push her every single day. She was so excited when she got accepted to Bucknell, and I think she's going to be pretty good for us."
Shaffer, in just one year at Bucknell, said she has already benefited from advanced coaching.
"I have learned so much as a runner," Shaffer said. "There are certain things like consistency being the most important part about everything. When it came to basketball season in high school, I lost that consistency, because I was not training a lot at that point. All I was thinking about was basketball. What I never really worried about too much were splits. I went off feel. Now I know what I want to split for each lap, what time I want to be at and I know how I'm going to do in the middle of a race, which is a nice feeling."
Comeback complete
Shaffer described her first year at Bucknell as a "fresh start" after everyone in Portage spent her senior year upset for her following her injury. She was able to make new friends, who had no idea where she came from or what happened to her.
"My friends here have heard of certain schools out of Pittsburgh or Philadelphia," Shaffer said. "Then they hear I went to Portage and have never heard of that. It's kind of neat to be from such a small place, but the people I have met have been amazing. They are from bigger places, and they tell me about their experiences. It's kind of cool, because I hear about things I didn't get to do, but I'm still competing at the same level with them."
Hudak, who took the time to introduce herself to every single member of her Central PA girls basketball all-star team during practice for the Altoona Mirror Classic last spring and helped everyone fit in, plans on doing the same at Bucknell.
"My goal is to get through the fall and the winter training as hard as I can, getting as strong as I can and making some good relationships," Hudak said. "I never really got to have that track family experience, because I was always at softball or at physical therapy, so I never had that feeling I had with basketball. I'm excited to meet kids who want to be there and make some good friendships and get the skill of throwing the javelin down. I'm excited to focus on that, because the focus has always been on other sports."
It would shock no one in Portage if Bucknell has a couple of Cambria County natives as leaders of its team in a couple years.
"It's neat to have two girls from Portage that didn't have track as their primary event when they started competing in high school," Donner said. "Now, they are both going to be competing together at a pretty good Division I school in it. Both blew their knee out at the same time, and both are making a comeback as we speak."
A comeback story that began together, developed both in Lewisburg and Portage, and is now together again.
"It's pretty cool to have two people from such a small town to go to such a nice university," Shaffer said. "When we were doing injuries together, my senior year all I was looking forward to was getting healthy, getting back to what I loved. The way Maddy was able to do that as well was amazing."
"Me thinking about this right now, I'm seriously going to tear up," Hudak said. "Lauren, even off the court, is seriously one of my best friends. Going and playing college sports with her is so surreal. Coach Donner and our friends and families at home are going to eat it up."
Now an opportunity for both Shaffer and Hudak, which began before either were even born when Donner took the Saint Francis job in 1995, stands ready for the taking with both of them finally back to full health.
"Portage is a hard-working town," Donner said. "It's a blue-collar town, and those are the type of kids I like to get, because they are used to hard work. Both of them are going to put in the hard work and be in a good atmosphere. We have a good track and field team that is very balanced here that can contend for Patriot League titles. Lauren definitely has the right mindset, and if Maddy comes in with the right mindset of wanting to learn, knowing there will be some trials and errors, I think they both have an opportunity to improve by leaps and bounds."