The 2002 Iolani School graduate started out the track season, which began last weekend, by writing inspirational notes to her teammates.

"It was a story about a little link, and it talks about linking you to the team, how there is an understanding between your teammates and you," Dignam said. "Girls on my team were crying, and they couldn't stop hugging me, and just seeing that is what helps me feel good."

Dignam, who won five gold medals as a senior in leading Iolani's girls program to its first state track and field championship, also wrote a letter to the Iolani girls track and field team the year after she graduated, telling her former teammates and coaches to "try their best" and "give it your all."

"I love getting inspirational letters from people," she said. "I just feel if it has that big of an impact on me ... "

Dignam said she doesn't know where she first picked up the idea of writing inspirational notes, but said her father, Stephen, likely played a role.

"My dad always used to write notes to me in my lunchbox, on game days and track meets, telling me what I needed to do," she said. "So that might have been it. A lot of it."

She said even if the letters aren't that "mushy, I enjoy writing letters and stuff, and helping people."

As one of the veteran sprinters on the track team this year, Dignam has stepped into the leadership role Vaughn said he "could tell early" she would fill.

"She's a magnety-type of leader, you're just kind of drawn to her," said the first-year sprint coach. "She was one of the first people I met when I interviewed here.

"I could see the leadership in her, because I met her with a couple of the sprint girls. She stepped up and just asked, 'What do you expect from us?' "

Dignam is the school's record holder in the 400-meter dash (54.41 seconds) and is sixth in UW history in the 200 (24.34 seconds), both set last year.

"I definitely want to break that again, and I know I can go faster than that," Dignam said. "When I think about the race when I broke the record, it just seemed so easy. I know it's weird to say, but I can't explain what I did. That day, I was just so relaxed and I just ran instead of thinking about every little thing."

She couldn't achieve that in last Saturday's meet, when she struggled, finishing 10th in the 400 in 58.25.

"I'm not really concerned right now with just one race," Vaughn said. "Her strength level is up, but we haven't been able to do much sprint training yet."

Dignam ran in the 4x400-meter relay later in the meet, and her split time in the first leg was 55.8, Vaughn said.

"To end the day much better than when she started it, I don't have many problems right now," he said.

Dignam, whom Vaughn calls "the glue that bonds us," said although her performance last weekend wasn't what she expected, "I started off a lot better than I did last year, so that's the way I'm thinking about it. I'm trying not to get too down."

Dignam — Vaughn calls her "L-Boogie," because "I want her to boogie down that track as much as she can," — has evolved into a leader whom Vaughn said has "been there for everybody."

Dignam said having to be a leader and role model is a responsibility she likes, and it is what led her to write the inspirational notes to her teammates.

"We have a lot of young girls and they were really nervous," Dignam said. "I'm nervous all the time, too, but I'm a little older and I know how to deal with it a little better."