UEL, a University known for its sporting prowess and development of high level student athletes has played its part in some of the success stories of recent years.
From former BSc Sport and Exercise student Ali Jawad, winning silver at the Rio Olympics in 2016 for Paralympic Power lifting to former MSc Strength and conditioning student, Sophie Cox achieving a bronze medal at the 2010 World Cup for Judo, among being a 3 time European Cup medalist as well.
To find out more about the student athletes at UEL and how they are supported through their journey I caught up with Lead Lifestyle and Development Practitioner here at UEL, Elizabeth Egan, who gave us an introductory to the work she does on campus.
“So I come in a couple of days about every three to four weeks, athletes schedule one to one meetings with me, will go through updates on how things are going, an opportunity for them to say what’s going on in their lives, and for them to get a clear idea of what’s going in their lives in their own head, so it’s much of them thinking, where I’m at now? What’s important? What am I forgetting that I should be doing? What did I say that I would do three weeks ago that I haven’t done? That sort of thing, a lot of time when I’m meeting with an athlete, I’ll see them thinking ‘oh yes that makes sense’, so they come quite confused and just by talking it through, they get a clear idea, right through people who do not know how to manage their time and want some tools to help manage their time or make career decisions or to get to know themselves a little bit more in terms of their strengths and values.”
Egan also gave a detailed insight to how she had got involved in this career path.
“I did a degree in Sport Science, because I wanted to work in Sport, I did my degree in Ireland, about 15 years ago, I graduated in 2001, at that point I thought I wanted to go into research and lecturing, so I did a PHD, looking at bone mineral density in female athletes, halfway through that, I realised I didn’t want to go into lecturing and I didn’t want to do full time research, so I was applying for all sorts of jobs, sports administration jobs, and applied sport science jobs, because even though I had a PHD, I didn’t have enough practical experience, so from the applied sport science side of things I didn’t have a lot of experience.”
“I done other things during my degree, while studying my PHD I was club captain of the most successful athletics team at university in Ireland, and lots of little things like that. I eventually got a Job at the University of Birmingham looking after their sports scholarships program, part of that role was one to one, they called it mentoring with athletes, which has involved more into lifestyles or less off what I did and instead help with solutions, I did that for four years, then left, took the program to where I wanted to and wrote a book about altitude training, traveled the world for a year. After that the opportunity came about for the lifestyle role here as Lifestyle practitioners didn’t exist 20 years ago.”
An athlete’s career longevity can depend on various factors, be it their physical condition, their talent or even their mental state, but how does a student athlete fair in all of this, while balancing their studies at the same time, Egan had more to say on the matter:
“Sometimes people will give up their sport because they can’t afford to do it anymore or it’s an all or nothing sort of thing, or if they are used to being in a university setting, where they have to balance their studies with their sport, but actually than they never know how easy they have it until they move out into the real world, or they have had the opportunity to play professionally for a couple of years or go to the states and essentially be professional while they are studying, then they’ve become complacent, or got used to not being in a routine, so when they have more to put in, then they can’t cope with the time, so then their sport starts to suffer because of that, which may lead to them going ‘actually I can’t see a way of moving forward because of that’, so they may retire early because of that.”
Life of a student athlete can prove a tough task, however if given the right support and guidance can accomplish great success like those of their predecessors.
