“U of T is for smart people who love sports.” Bruce Kidd, dean of the Faculty of Physical Education and Health (FPEH), didn’t mince words when he spoke at the T-Holder academic excellence awards on Tuesday night.
The event, held by the alumni T-Holders’ Association, honours students who achieve first class honours while demonstrating exceptional athletic prowess. To do both in one year is no small feat, considering the time commitments needed to juggle a full course load, practices, and competitions.
Difficult as it sounds to be a star athlete as well as a star pupil, over 150 student athletes crowded the ROM theatre for this year’s awards event. That’s twice as many “T” recipients than in 1995. Since multiple-year winners are common, athletes were bringing home the award for the second, third, fourth, or fifth time. For one talented individual, Tuesday’s ceremony marked the student’s eighth “T.”
On hand as the event’s special guest speaker was Nancy Lee, Vice-President of CBC Sports and a T-Holder for swimming. Lee offered the athletes some words of wisdom, stressing the positive impact her experience on the varsity swim team had on her career.
One of two masters of ceremonies for the evening, Andrea Iaboni, definitely needed no excuse to be at the awards. Iaboni is a Rhodes scholar, going into her second year of med school at U of T-and she is of course a member of the talented T-Holder circle. During her four undergraduate years at U of T, Iaboni played on the varsity women’s rugby team.
“The truth is,” she relates, “during rugby season, I was a much better student.”
Iaboni commented that as a student, the invigorating properties of sport provide much needed relieffrom studying. Juggling school and rugby also taught this top scholar budgeting skills and organization, and it helped her ditch cramming- a bad study habit.
This alumni experience and advice hit home with the well-dressed set at the awards. The same old buzzwords -familiar to anyone who’s seen the inside of a guidance counsellor’s office-came up again and again: prioritize and manage your time effectively.
Prioritizing, says Stephen Murphy, a graduate of teacher’s college with four years experience on the men’s ice hockey team, is necessary to achieve success in school and sport. Murphy, who received his first T-Holder award, also stressed time management. “You can’t get out of practice…so if you have two hours free, you aren’t going to be on a couch watching TV.”
