Many undergraduate students, and especially student athletes, struggle to meet the demands of university life.
Elizabeth Leroux has succeeded her undergraduate and masters degrees as a varsity athlete. Leroux is now completing a PhD at Carleton, working as a teaching assistant, and still competing as a varsity athlete in water polo.
“She’s our goalie, and she’s our only goalie,” head coach Victoria Peters said. “We couldn’t play a game without her, really.”
Team captain Emma Cooke said Leroux didn’t let the struggle of her workload show.
“On tournaments, she would spend a bit more time doing work, but she was always really committed, always made it to as many practices as the rest of us,” she said.
Peters agreed.
“No matter the situation, no matter how she’s feeling, injured or not, she’s always starting, and she’s always playing,” she said.
Peters said the players’ range of ages, including Leroux, noticeably change the team dynamic.
“Elizabeth doing her PhD offers a couple different things,” Peters said. “With age comes a little bit more maturity, and wisdom, and knowledge, so I think she’s able to balance the team that way.”
Leroux said her role as a PhD student and varsity athlete has a lot to do with balance, but on a more personal level too.
“One of the things that PhD students struggle with the most . . . is balance,” Leroux said. “If that’s through sport or it’s through board games or something else, I don’t think it really matters.”
To accommodate for what she described as the two huge time commitments of being a varsity athlete and a PhD student, Leroux said her schedule is tightly-managed.
“I manage it precariously. It’s difficult,” Leroux said. “I do my best to get dates in advance and set up a semester-long schedule and do work whenever I can, really.”
The student athlete credits the nature of the sport, in part, for allowing her to manage it alongside her studies.
Practices are scheduled in the evenings, allowing Leroux to focus on her academic responsibilities during the day. Tournaments also take place within Ontario, which means less travel time consuming her weekends.
Regularly scheduled practices also allow her to enjoy a social aspect of university that Leroux said she wouldn’t have time for otherwise.
“It’s like having an automatic, built-in family,” Leroux said.
Leroux has played water polo for nine of the last 10 years, throughout high school, her undergraduate at the University of Ottawa, and a masters at Ryerson.
The length of career Leroux has enjoyed, however, isn’t possible for every varsity athlete.
For sports that compete at the provincial level such as water polo, there is no maximum number of years a student can participate.
For sports that compete at the national level such as basketball, students can participate a maximum of five years.
“I’m so lucky that water polo doesn’t have an eligibility cap, so I sort of question the value of eligibility caps,” Leroux said, who cited feeling more comfortable on campus and having a peer network as some of the benefits.
The sport itself is also incentive to play for her.
“It’s arguably one of the most intensely competitive sports as well as very aggressive, and because of that there’a lot of energy in the pool,” Leroux said.
