16 September 2024 Olympian Sports Scholar didn't have to give up academic aspirations

Charlie Morrison has been juggling his degree with training, matches and most recently the Olympics.

With the flexibility offered by his sport scholarship, Charlie has not had to give up his goal of earning a Bachelor of Commerce or compromise his sport.

The 21-year-old recently returned from representing New Zealand for hockey at the Paris Olympics and is now catching up on his studies.

He is one of Lincoln's current students part of the Sport Scholarship programme, which will celebrate 25 years in October.

Charlie started his hockey career at Christchurch’s Marist Hockey Club at about 7-years-old. He was seeing success in his final year of high school and wanted to give the sport a real shot.

“I definitely knew it was something I wanted to do, but didn’t quite know the pathway or the steps I should take to get there.

Coming to Lincoln and having something like the sport scholarship programme definitely put my foot in the right direction.

A few fellow players were former sports scholars and all recommended the programme. He was also interested in the university’s finance and supply chain courses, which he had heard were high quality.

Now he studies part time and performing at the top level of hockey, balancing both parts of his life.

Many of his training facilities were in Christchurch, but the coordinators at Lincoln were in regular contact with his trainers and they made it easy to work across different locations.

“They’ve been really good.”

As long as he made sure to communicate early and well, his lecturers did everything they could to fit in assignments and restructure the programme.

Charlie made full use of his classes being available online, as it could be a challenge fitting in his lessons between training and travelling for sport.

“I try to get out here as often as possible when I’m back, but sometimes it doesn’t work out like that. I’ve enjoyed the ability for it to be flexible.

“It’s been easy to catch up. I don’t know if I would have had that luxury if I had to attend face-to-face every time.

I feel so lucky. Lincoln’s been bloody awesome with that.

It could be difficult getting an education while balancing professional sport, but it was manageable and forced him to learn time management skills, he said.

Lincoln also provided him access to sporting services which were key in keeping him in top form, such as like nutritional advice.

The mental skills support was particularly useful for helping him perform under pressure, he said.

He did not believe he would be able to study throughout the year while pursuing professional sport without the programme.

“I think I would have had to cut it right back, or done it all in summer school.”

He wanted to earn his degree and saw it as a vital part of his future.

“Hockey’s a pretty underfunded sport. Having something alongside your hockey career is so important.”

Although their result at the Olympics was “pretty frustrating”, Charlie was looking ahead to more competitions later in the year, such as the National Hockey Championship and the Premier Hockey League.

He also plans to attend summer school and try graduate next year.

Buy tickets for the 25 Years of Sports Scholarship Celebration here