Because law school just isn’t competitive enough…
I interviewed two of my friends, Caroline and Daniel, who were crazy enough to tack on varsity athletics on top of law school, in true U of T Law, type-A, psycho fashion. The two were generous enough to provide insight on their experiences.
Caroline Harrell
Ultra Vires (UV): Tell us a little bit about yourself — what sport do you compete in and how did you get into it?
Caroline Harrell (CH): I run the 800m for the University of Toronto Varsity Blues. I played a lot of sports in high school but I focused on track in 11th grade after deciding that I was more likely to get a scholarship in track than in soccer.
UV: Why track and law school?
CH: After finishing my undergrad at the University of Victoria (UVic), I had two years of eligibility left and I felt like I hadn’t maximized my potential. I also knew the coach, Terry Radchenko, and many of the girls on the team, who are wonderful. I figured track would give me an outlet from law school and a strong support system. I hoped that being on a varsity team would make me more competitive in the Bay Street recruit and offset any weakness in my grades.
UV: What was the time commitment like?
CH: A regular training week has about 20 hours of training. This doesn’t include hours spent in physio appointments, travelling to races, and eating/resting enough to recover. The racing schedule also happens to conflict a lot with law school commitments. For example, our first race of the indoor season was in early December, the night before an LRW assignment was due.
UV: Did anyone warn you against doing it?
CH: Several people told me that school at U of T would be significantly harder than UVic and that managing both would be nearly impossible. There was a lot of pressure not to compete given the importance placed on first-year grades. However, a U of T Law and Varsity Blues Track alumna insisted it was manageable as long as I was focused and diligent. She was right.
UV: So how did you manage varsity and law school, and do you have any advice for someone considering this?
CH: Be disciplined and take advantage of spare time in your day. For example, during the 90-minute lunch break every day, instead of socializing I would study. Also, I was lucky to have an extremely understanding coach. Communicating your schedule and priorities to your coach is critical.
UV: On the other side, what were some downsides of doing track and law school?
CH: The same downsides of running track during my undergrad applied in law school. My social life suffered a bit and I was limited in the amount of extracurriculars I could be involved with. For example, I only went to one or two Call to the Bar pub nights because we had practice on Thursdays. I also chose to limit my law extracurriculars to the Tax Law Society and would have liked to work for a clinic if I had the time.
UV: Overall, would you say it was worth it? Would you do anything differently?
CH: Definitely. I think much of my success in the 1L recruit can be credited to being a varsity athlete. Lawyers understand the difficulty of balancing law school and a varsity sport and how well that experience will prepare you for working at a firm. There’s not much I would do differently; maybe I would have studied more for my first semester exams.
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Daniel Gao
UV: Tell us a little bit about yourself. What sport do you compete in and how did you get into it?
Daniel Gao (DG): I was on the 2018–2019 Men’s Curling team for the University of Toronto Varsity Blues. I started curling in grade 9 when I realized I was too short to play hockey and curling could keep me on the ice. However, I fell in love with the sport immediately and competed at the provincial level during high school. I stopped after starting undergrad, but when I saw the opportunity to return to the competitive curling landscape, I was more than happy to take it.
UV: Why curling and law school?
DG: I love feeling stressed all the time! Kidding aside, I really enjoy being on the ice, and curling is a great outlet away from law school. When you’re playing sports at a competitive level, it’s hard to focus or worry about anything else. For those three hours I’m in the game, the 100 pages of reading, 3,000 word essay, and 20 job applications that I have to do (and should be doing) feel like they don’t exist.
UV: What was the time commitment like?
DG: For the first semester, we focused on team building and general preparation. We did three 3-hour sessions on ice each week during that time — usually one game with a local team and two training sessions. The peak curling season is from January to February, which is when it really ramps up because we are preparing for provincials, which take place at the end of February. During that time there is an additional 3-hour practice every week on top of out-of-town tournaments from Friday to Sunday every other weekend.
UV: Did anyone warn you against doing it?
DG: Most people thought it was a bit crazy to do both but surprisingly other varsity athletes were very much in favour of doing it. During Welcome Day, I talked to a law student who was a varsity figure skater and also a SLS executive. She recommended varsity for several of the reasons that I ended up doing it for: it is a great change of pace from readings, it adds another social community, and it is great on the resume. With proper time management, she assured me that doing both is definitely possible.
UV: Any special moments or memories from the year?
DG: The biggest highlight of the year was when we had a home tournament that was pretty far away and I invited a couple of classmates to come and watch me play. These were people that I had only known for a couple of months, but roughly 20 of them still made the hour-long trek to the game and showed up to support me and the team. People made signs, cheered us on, and watched the whole three-hour game, and seeing that was really touching. I think it really speaks to the whole community at the law school and just how supportive it really is, which makes me especially proud to be a varsity athlete and law student.
UV: Did you perform as well as you wanted academically?
DG: I don’t know if not having done curling would have made a difference in my academic performance. Overall, I felt like I performed as best as I could in the circumstances, and I would not change anything if I had a chance to do it again. Even if my grades suffered from the 10-20 hours a week I put into curling, I probably still would have done it. An extra H or two on my transcript, to me at least, was not worth losing the enjoyment I got out of competitive curling.
UV: Overall would you say it was worth it? Would you do anything differently?
DG: I would say that doing varsity curling was well worth it and I wouldn’t have done anything differently. In addition to all the benefits I stated before, I also made a lot of good friendships through it. In terms of doing anything differently in regards to first year overall, I probably would’ve gone to fewer Call to the Bars, but nothing else really.
*Editor’s Note: Daniel Gao is the Ultra Vires Business Manager.
