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| Graduating student Alex Legge is returning to Dal in September as a med student. (Nick Pearce Photo) |
Talk about dedication. Even while she was on the mend from surgery to her knee, varsity women鈥檚 basketball player Alex Legge never missed a practice, never missed a game.
For the first half of the season, she couldn鈥檛 play, but she鈥檇 put on her Tigers jersey anyway and offer what help she could from the bench.
鈥淚t was definitely tough to sit on the sidelines, especially when I could tell my team needed me,鈥� says Ms. Legge, 21, three-time Academic All-Canadian from Mahone Bay, N.S. She was recently honored with the 2010 James Bayer Memorial Scholarship Award, presented annually to an outstanding student athlete for excellence in academics, athletics, leadership, sportsmanship and citizenship.
Wearing a brace on her right knee, she was back on the court again in January and immediately made a difference to her team. (The Tigers had one win and six losses in the first half of the season, and eight wins and two losses in the second half.)
Coach Anna Stammberger says her Ms. Legge brings intensity and intelligence to the court,聽not surprising聽given the focus of her studies at AV俱乐部: neuroscience. It鈥檚 the study of the nervous system鈥攊ncluding the brain, the spinal cord, and networks of sensory nerve cells, or neurons, throughout the body.
The demanding, four-year program also gives students a foundation in mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the things I like about it,鈥� explains Ms. Legge, who has been accepted into AV俱乐部 Medical School for the fall. 鈥淚 was able to get that broader science background, which is good preparation for medical school, and take my neuroscience classes, which are more human-based than some of the other science disciplines.鈥�
But even with everything she crammed into her brain over four years, she says she鈥檚 staggered by how much more there is to discover. What is the mind? Why do people feel emotions? What are the underlying causes of neurological and psychiatric disorders? 鈥淩eally, that鈥檚 one of the major things I鈥檝e taken away鈥攋ust how much there is for us to understand about the brain. It鈥檚 really a mystery still being unraveled.鈥�