St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School Class of 2010 Alumna and professional soccer player, Alexandra Gummer, recently returned to the school to inspire students enrolled in the Elite Sports Performers (ESP) Program.
The professional athlete encouraged students to pursue sports by providing valuable advice on how she is balancing her sporting career with her Chemical Engineering career, and how the students can balance their own sporting commitments with school.
Since graduating from St Paul’s, Alexandra studied at Monash University and has completed a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Hons) and a Bachelor of Science (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology).
During this time she balanced her studies whilst playing for Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory in the W- League.
Alexandra also completed a six month exchange in Leeds in the United Kingdom where she was able to play for the Doncaster Rovers Belles in the WSL1 and play against the Chelsea Ladies in the FA Cup.
The students listened to Alexandra as she spoke about her journey that included many highs and lows as she was striving to achieve her goals. Her story of resilience, was an inspiration to the students to never give up their goals and dreams.
As Alexandra balanced school with her sporting commitments and now balances work with her sport, she was able to provide the students with real-life suggestions on how they too can balance their sport with school and future endeavours.
With currently over 60 students in the ESP Program at St Paul’s, the program aims to assist young athletes competing at a state, national or international level in their chosen sport to balance the demands of school with their sporting commitments.
The program also provides students with opportunities to develop their sporting abilities through the involvement of Elite Athlete guest speakers and now also gives students a link to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) with each ESP student having access to the myAISbasecamp program.
