My name is Nicole Morrison and I played 5 years for the Laurier Women’s Basketball team, graduating with a bachelor of communication studies honours. I recently played my last career game as a Golden Hawk up at Lakehead University, our team just falling short after a hard first round loss. 

My entire basketball career I was always one of the smallest players on my team, which always made me push harder to be the strongest. I worked extremely hard during my high school career on the court and in the gym in order to make up for my height disadvantage. Despite my best efforts I was not highly recruited in my last year only having a few programs interested in me; one of them being Laurier. Coach Paul Falco never saw my size as a disadvantage and decided to take a chance on me which changed my life forever.

Laurier women’s basketball without a doubt gave me the best 5 years of my life. I was lucky enough to play my first two years with extremely talented women who helped us make it to nationals in my first year and be nationally ranked in my second year. Those teams showed me how to lead by example, how to be a supportive teammate, and showed me what it’s like to have a constant support system. I still remember the OUA bronze medal game in my first year that we won in double overtime that took us to my first and only nationals. The excitement of our team and that feeling of great accomplishment is one that I've held on to and strived to achieve my entire career at Laurier. 

Every year of my career and the off seasons leading up to it I was always wanting to find ways to be better, physically, and skill wise. After every season coach sits down with us and discusses the things we need to work on. I always remember every conversation we had after every season was filled with the big expectations he had for me which made me want to work harder to prove I could fill those shoes. I worked as hard as I could and so did my coaches to reach my goals and the last 3 seasons of my career I noticed the vast improvements I made to my game that helped me become successful in the OUA. I was and still never am one to focus on personal statistics but I was proud to look back on previous years and notice the steady increase every year that I made from the previous in my game stats. 

Laurier athletics through the whole thing supported me my entire career, giving me every tool I needed to be the best I could be as a player and as a person. I could not have chosen a better school as I believe our department is one of the best in Canada. Everyone treats you like family and are proud of every single athlete that accomplishes great things. As I look back on my career I realize how lucky I was to be a Golden Hawk and how much I’m going to miss everybody. However I know that every single thing I accomplish after my time at Laurier I still have all of those people cheering me on hoping that I succeed and I couldn’t ask for anything more! I am so very proud of my career, and the program, coaches, and every player that has and continues to make Laurier women’s basketball the program it is today. 

Moving on is difficult, when you have been focused on one thing for so long it's hard to get perspective and find anything else that fulfills the hole that is left behind from leaving the sport you love. However through this difficult task I have found fulfilment in giving back to the community that gave so much to me. Volunteering, fundraising and trying to find ways to give young girls the opportunity I had to play the sport they love at a high level. The end of my basketball career has also helped me focus more on my actual career goals and what I want to be doing the rest of my life, which pushed me into taking my police testing and applying to the OPP. 

All I can say is I hope everyone that goes through the Laurier womens basketball program or the athletics program in general has the type of experience I had. The chant “it’s great to be a laurier golden hawk” does not lie, there is no experience that compares to it! 

Nicole Morrison - April 2018