By Sam Beaudoin
As Catrina Garvey steps off the plane in British Columbia ahead of her two exhibition matches as a member of the Bold women’s basketball team, the sport she loves so dearly is not the only thing occupying her mind.
The second-year guard is eagerly awaiting a response from one of her professors in regards to an online midterm exam she has scheduled on game day.
The predicament has Garvey overcome with anger and annoyance. Despite her busy schedule, the psychology major has sent four emails to her professor in an attempt to find a scheduling solution.
After waiting weeks for a response, it is now the morning of the exam, and still, there is no resolution in sight.
“I was pretty stiff and getting concerned that she was not going to answer me,” says Garvey. “I began to think of what would happen if I didn’t write this exam.”
Due to the time difference between the two provinces, Garvey is forced to wake up at 5 a.m. to write the exam and was preparing to miss the team’s routine morning shootaround in preparation for the game as a result.
“The thought of writing the exam at 5 a.m. was freaking me out,” says Garvey.
Athletes are creatures of habit and, therefore, the combination of an early wake-up, missing practice and the additional stress from the situation is not optimal for the guard.
With hours to go before the exam begins, the team’s assistant coach Jama Bin-Edward—who is a student success navigator at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)—comes to the rescue by emailing the school and pushing the exam back to a later date.
“I could finally breathe again,” Garvey says.
Post-secondary academics are generally associated with high levels of stress among all students—athletes and non-athletes alike. A study conducted by McGill University in 2017 found that 60 per cent of students experience “above average to tremendous levels of stress” in their day-to-day university lives.
In addition to their academic life—which alone is stressful enough—student-athletes must also balance the competitive world of varsity sports.
These individuals are still required to enroll in full-time courses and maintain their grade point average (GPA), all while handling the additional responsibilities of playing on a team.
The Bold requires student-athletes on all competitive sports teams to be registered in a full-time program of study or at a minimum carry a full-time course load (three credits) if registered through the Chang School, in compliance with the U Sports and Ontario University Athletics (OUA) policy.
Nick Asquini, the director of sport operations for TMU Athletics and Recreation, said in an emailed statement to The Eyeopener that if an athlete’s GPA falls below the 1.67 academic probation threshold—which is in place for all full-time university students—“we meet with the athlete to understand what challenges they may be having and what support we can connect them with.”
Asquini says, “If an athlete falls below a 1.0, then we may take a more active approach with respect to the time being committed to sport versus academics. Falling below 1.0 can often be a really challenging task for a student to pull themselves off of probation and academic standing has to come ahead of sport.”
Another policy set by the OUA and U Sports is student-athletes must meet a 2.67 GPA to qualify for an athletic financial award. Players are nominated for these scholarships by their coaches based on athletic merit and team leadership.
“Our objective is not to be punitive but to stay in compliance with the rules set by our sport governing bodies and support student-athletes to balance their commitment to academics and sport,” says Asquini.
On top of their academic commitment, student-athletes’ responsibilities include attending team meetings, workouts, practices, film sessions, games and enduring the gruelling early morning and late night bus rides—all while managing the performance anxiety and pressure that accompanies being an athlete.
A 2022 survey conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) found that rates of anxiety, depression and mental exhaustion among student-athletes at American colleges have nearly doubled since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey concluded that among the respondents who experienced these feelings, 38 per cent were involved in women’s sports and 22 per cent were involved in men’s sports.
Last year, Garvey’s first year as a student-athlete included many all-nighters. As the hours on the clock ticked away into the night, her stress only intensified.
“There have been nights where I’ve stayed up stressing,” she says. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Do I even wanna study? Do I even wanna try?’”
Garvey acknowledges that this lifestyle is a grind and it can be hard to stop and catch your breath at times—especially with a daily schedule that looks like hers.
A typical Wednesday for Garvey this semester goes as follows: the Ottawa product begins her day at 8 a.m. and heads straight to the Mattamy Athletic Centre (MAC) for technical sessions with her teammates. Following that, she works with the Bold athletic staff on rehabilitation exercises ahead of practice which runs from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. and is followed up with an hour of strength and conditioning.
Garvey then heads home and completes school assignments, or if necessary, begins to pack for the team’s upcoming road trip.
Despite this chaotic and tiring schedule, Garvey continues to enjoy the experience. Her love for the game powers her through times of hardship, ultimately making the journey worthwhile.
“I’ve never questioned doing [academics and basketball] together, because I just love them both so much,” says Garvey.
“Sometimes I ask myself ‘Do I even wanna study? Do I even wanna try?’”
Emily Baxter sits alone in her room during a late night of her first year. She places her fingers on her mouse pad and moves the cursor to hover over the top right-hand corner of her computer screen. As the time appears, it reads 4 a.m. The Bold women’s hockey team forward has no choice but to stay awake into the early hours of the morning to complete an assignment.
It’s the early years of her student-athlete life at TMU, and Baxter—the now biomedical engineering master’s student—questions whether this stressful lifestyle is truly worth it.
“Man, sometimes I wish I wasn’t a student-athlete,” she recalls thinking to herself that night.
The harsh reality of being a student-athlete is that these late nights are not outliers. Getting accustomed to a university workload is quite difficult on its own, but for Baxter, it was even more challenging while she was beginning university. Having come off of a gap year after high school, Baxter admits getting back into an academic routine was very tough.
The academic stress and mixed with four on-ice training sessions, three off-ice team workouts and one video session per week was a shock to Baxter’s system.
While at times hockey seemed like a secondary priority, the Bold captain admits the time away from the textbooks was beneficial.
“When you’re on the ice, it helps remind you why you’re doing it and why you love the game,” says Baxter.
During that first year, she relied on fellow teammates whom she shared classes with as well as academic mentors—former student-athletes who are made available by TMU to provide guidance, study tips and anxiety relief for current student-athletes.
The academic mentorship program is more accessible to first-year
student-athletes on all teams, who are new to the lifestyle and are in need of guidance. Often, athletes in older years will become academic helpers and share their routines with newcomers to the school.
“They were very helpful, they were someone who’s been in our shoes and knows what it’s like,” says Baxter.
Athletics also offers workshop services to help athletes with typical life skills such as finances. Baxter admits she was skeptical about these meetings at first, however, as of this year, she has become a regular attendee.
“At first, I didn’t think I needed the workshops, but recently they’ve been very helpful, especially living in a big city such as Toronto,” Baxter says.
Baxter has utilized all the additional resources TMU offers to student-athletes—such as tutors, private study spaces, therapists and academic days off from hockey.
Baxter mentions accessing a tutor as a student-athlete is “super easy” and rather than going through the school portal, Athletics assists athletes with the request.
Sandy Carpenter—academic services and learning strategist at TMU—is also a helpful resource many students utilize. Carpenter’s role entails providing students with a variety of support services, including counselling to ensure student-athletes are on the right track both academically and physically.
The study by the NCAA further mentions that two-thirds of student-athletes know where to go on campus to seek help if needed. The study proceeds to mention that 56 per cent of student-athletes admitted to knowing when a teammate was experiencing mental health issues.
Baxter has had positive experiences with the services TMU offers and has seen outstanding results both on and off the ice.
In her four seasons as a member of the Bold, Baxter has been awarded the Claude LaJeunesse Award twice. The award is given out to the TMU student-athlete who posts the highest GPA during the academic school year.
Baxter credits her success to not only her study habits but the way she structures her schedule and the time she sets apart for herself to have downtime with friends.
“Being in the go, go, go mindset can get exhausting and definitely leads to a burnout,” Baxter says. “If you set aside time to rest and spend time with friends, it makes the semester a lot easier.”
Baxter returned to TMU this fall to begin her master’s degree. With four years of experience under her belt, she has now mastered the best way to handle all the stresses that accompany her lifestyle.
Whether it’s scrolling through TikTok, reading the occasional fiction book or going on a walk with her friends to Queen’s Park, the biggest lesson Baxter has learned throughout this journey is to prioritize time for herself.
Baxter preaches to younger student-athletes that while the world can seem like it’s crumbling down at times, life will always go on.
“At the end of the day, the world isn’t going to end,” she says.
After a gruelling seven-month season, Kai Edmonds skates out to his crease at the MAC—a place he’s dominated during his two years at TMU. It is one of the biggest weeks of his professional career. However, this time, the building he’s started a number of games in has a different feeling.
He begins shredding the ice in front of the net and takes part in his typical pregame warm-up. But this time, the stakes are especially high. This is not a standard OUA game—he’s about to start his first-ever U Sports national men’s championship game.
“As a [goalie,] I feel I have the power to be the person who wins us a game or the person who loses us a game,” he says. “I want that pressure that comes with being a goaltender.”
As if the stress of the game wasn’t enough, Edmonds has the additional challenge of the national tournament aligning with his midterms. On top of the responsibility to deliver solid performances for his team, the goaltender also has to spend time preparing for numerous exams he has scheduled that same week.
“It was a difficult time,” says Edmonds. “It’s just about finding the balance between both and trying to be as successful as you can in every aspect of your life.”
Some of that balance for the business management economics and management science student is acquired in the summertime. Like many of his teammates, Edmonds will occasionally enroll in courses offered during the summer in order to free up his schedule during hockey season.
The Ottawa product acknowledges that summer courses in combination with hybrid courses are extremely beneficial for easing his stress as a student-athlete. To his content, the third-year player only has three days a week this semester where hockey and academics fall on the same day.
For Edmonds, the student-athlete lifestyle has been an adjustment in a different way than other athletes at TMU. Prior to his stardom as a member of the Bold, the 24-year-old made a combined 105 starts in the Ontario Hockey League from 2017–2020. Additionally, he appeared in one game with the Toronto Maple Leafs affiliate—the Toronto Marlies—during the 2020–2021 season.
Because of this, attending class on a game day still feels unnatural for Edmonds.
“Sometimes it’s hard, we’re used to our routines from junior hockey where you don’t have to do school on game days,” he says. “On those days, I try to do whatever I can to free myself from school.”
In order to clear his schedule on game days, Edmonds prioritizes doing only a bit of work every day rather than huge loads of work at a time. He accomplishes this by grinding away at assignments whenever his schedule frees up.
He finds being vocal with others about his experiences helps ease the stress that builds up throughout a semester. Whether that means talking academics with friends or talking hockey with his roommate and TMU forward Connor Bowie, the goaltender admits disconnecting from hockey has a plethora of benefits.
“I just try my best to get away from the rink from time to time,” he says.
Edmonds had to make adjustments in order to achieve success both on and off the ice over his last two years on the team. As a goaltender, he deals with additional stress that most student-athletes won’t face. However, that has not tarnished his experience as a member of the Bold, which he describes as an exciting journey through two years.
“It’s hard not to get down on yourself after challenging games, but you have to learn how to flush it out,” he says. “You have to chip away every day, every day is a day to improve and you can’t let a day go by without doing something.”
“Being in the go, go, go mindset can get exhausting and definitely leads to a burnout”
While many student-athletes use the lengthy cross-province bus rides to catch up on much-needed school work or sleep, Garvey uses this time differently. Rather, she utilizes this time for something she considers extremely important: listening to music.
“I take the opportunity to listen to music on the bus very seriously,” she says.
According to a study conducted by the University of Nevada, music can have a positive effect on individuals’ moods. It mentions, “A slower tempo can quiet your mind and relax your muscles, making you feel soothed while releasing the stress of the day. Music is effective for relaxation and stress management.”
As a student-athlete, music plays a positive role in the young guard’s life. One of the things she misses the most while living in Toronto during the school year is driving around her hometown of Ottawa blasting music.
“I love listening to music during car rides. Being downtown, you don’t get that opportunity a lot,” she says.
While being far from home has been a challenge for Garvey, she has begun to settle in and take the experience of being a student-athlete day by day.
Whether it’s visiting her sister in Burlington, Ont. or cooking dinner with her teammates, it’s the time taken away from sitting behind the keyboard or sprinting down the basketball court that helps to ease the stress the young star faces.
“It’s a challenging lifestyle but it teaches me to grow in different ways,” she says.
That’s the true nature of being a student-athlete. It is not for the weak nor is it just simply playing the sport you love for fun. These individuals endure enormous amounts of pressure, stress and challenges all while coming from different backgrounds.
For Garvey, being far from home only amplifies how difficult this experience can be. The sophomore not only experiences academic and athletic stress but manages it all while being far away from home on her own.
“Being five hours away from home is tough, especially mixed in with the academic stress and always having to perform on the court,” she says.
She acknowledges that school and basketball are both extremely important to her, but despite the stress it can bring to her life, she says if she had to pick one it would be “1,000 per cent basketball.”
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