Six graduating student athletes at Gleneagle secondary school are not planning to go quietly into the night.
In fact all of them are hoping to make an impact scholastically and on the sports field in university. Even as they’re starting all over again.
Because that’s essentially what Sara Knowles, Hana Tyndall, Amira Brar, Nadia Hakeem, Laura Touhey and Haley Bannister are doing. All of them are finishing their high school careers with top grades and armfuls of achievements in their sports. But moving on to study and play at university means having to prove themselves anew, earn their spot on the team.
The young women say they’re ready for the challenge. The sacrifices they’ve made to balance their school and sports commitments the past four years have prepared them well, fuelled them with the drive and desire to succeed.
“If you want it, it’s not a sacrifice,” says Knowles, a basketball player who’s taking her hoop dreams and 92 per cent average to the University of Toronto where she’ll study engineering. “It’s all about balance.”
Nadia Hakeem, a soccer player who will be taking business at Simon Fraser University in the fall, admits it’s an ongoing “internal struggle” to miss out on social events so she can get a leg up on school work to fulfill her sport commitments.
But, “if you like winning, it makes it all worth it,” says Hakeem, who realized early on in her athletic career that soccer could be her “gateway” to a post-secondary education.
All six of the graduating Talons are getting scholarship money to help pay for university. That brings its own pressures, says Tyndall, a hurdler heading to the University of Idaho where she’ll study kinesiology. So she was careful to choose a program where coaches could support her in the classroom as much as on the track, something she feels she’ll get from the school’s mentoring program.
Three of the student athletes will also be able to draw strength from each other. Brar, Touhey and Bannister are field hockey teammates bound for York University.
Brar says the familiar faces will help them navigate the new challenges of living on their own, being solely responsible for getting to classes and training for the team.
“You have way more responsibility,” says Brar, who’s taking environmental studies. “It teaches you to grow up.”
And while they’re all at the top of their game, and top of their class in high school, none of the young women is taking their status at the next level for granted.
“It’s intimidating,” says Tyndall.
“We’re going to have to work for it,” says Knowles.
“I have to practice like I’m a benchwarmer,” says Hakeem. “It’s going to be neat to see what my potential is, to see what I can produce.”
Their phys-ed teacher, Patty Anderson, says she has no doubt the sky’s the limit for her charges.
“They’re pretty multi-talented,” says Anderson who also coaches field hockey and basketball at Gleneagle. “It’s a proud moment when they can continue on with their passion to the next level.”
