A UJ star athlete and a student is proof that hard work is its own reward.
At the end of last year, Lance Chikore completed his honours degree in civil engineering and enrolled for a masters in structural engineering at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). In July this year, he was part of UJ’s basketball championship-winning team. Chikore will also head to Cape Town in September to deliver a paper at the International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation.
It’s clear as day that Chikore has found the perfect equation to balancing his academic and sporting commitments. As glorious of a year he is having, he said it was not achieved without some sacrifices. “Personally, for me to keep on track, I had to cut down on some other activities like going out on a regular basis and to minimise the number of hours of sleep to an average of five or six, depending on my workload and to make sure the brain stayed healthy.”
The now decorated sport and academic star shared a message with his fellow age and schoolmates to enable them to forge their own path in the world. “Never let anyone tell that you cannot do it or that certain people have tried it and failed. Just keep on pushing until you achieve your goal. The process is always hard but the fruits taste so nice that you will forget the struggle you went through to get what you wanted.”
Chikore said that in order to excel on the court, he needed to practice more than the scheduled team sessions.
“As an athlete, team practice is not sufficient, so you need to create extra time to work on your individual skills and to develop your game.”
This was all worth it when he contributed to UJ’s success at the University Sport South Africa’s annual tournament.
With an intense basketball training schedule, he needed to plan his days accordingly to make time for his studies. The early mornings, late nights and dedication to his master’s degree has resulted in him being invited an international seminar at the University of Cape Town, an invite he is extremely ecstatic to have received.
He concluded by saying hard work is the key to success and no one should pay attention to those that say otherwise.
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