A surgeon in the scrum
We caught up with scholar and Leicester Tigers rugby player Emeka to find out how the support of donors like you is helping him tackle his two passions simultaneously: medicine and rugby.
By making a generous donation to a sports scholar, not only do you give them important financial assistance, but you also unlock the opportunity to train at state-of-the-art facilities and access an expert support team to help balance their studies and training, giving them the chance to achieve their sporting and academic dreams.
This is certainly the case for Emeka Ilione, a fourth-year Medicine student who is also a back-rower for Leicester Tigers. When a student enrols for a medical degree, they know it will involve hours of gruelling study across several years, lots of late nights in the library, tough exams and commitment to placements. Now add on being a professional rugby player to all that and it almost seems an impossible task.
“I got into rugby at my secondary school, Nottingham High School, when I was 11,” said Emeka. “I really enjoyed playing. From there, one of the lads took me down to the local rugby club, which was Nottingham Corsairs, and I’ve just been playing ever since.”
Emeka is in a different position to most sports scholars because he declined the financial element of his scholarship offering, due to his income from playing rugby. He humbly stated that he’d rather “it can go to someone else who might benefit more from it”.
However, your donations to sports scholarship continue to make a crucial difference to Emeka’s time at Nottingham because the scholarship team helps manage his schedule and exams, ensuring he catches up on missed work.
“If I missed the day [of placement], the university team organise me so I can catch back up potentially on weekends when I’m not playing games,” he explained. “So, I’ve done quite a few days in the hospitals on a Saturday or Sunday just to get those hours back that I might have missed in the week.
“If I didn’t have the support I get from my scholarship, I wouldn’t still be at uni. I’d have dropped out by now. Or I’d have quit rugby, there’s no way I’d still be doing both.”
For Emeka, a day off is a rarity. “I think the last day I had fully off with no university and no rugby would have been more than a year ago,” he shared.
If I didn’t have the support I get from my scholarship, I wouldn’t still be at uni. I’d have dropped out by now. Or I’d have quit rugby, there’s no way I’d still be doing both.
Emeka Ilione
His hard work and dedication are continuing to pay off though and he hopes to one day become a surgeon.
In terms of his rugby successes, a bright future lies ahead for the dynamic young player. At just 21-years-old, he’s already captained England’s under-18 and under-20 squads and had his premiere league debut, which he described fondly as “something I’ll remember forever”.
Although striking the balance is no easy feat, Emeka takes it all in his stride. “It’s quite tough and free time is a premium, but these are the things I enjoy doing. I’m incredibly passionate about playing rugby and I want to achieve as much as I can in that, and play to the highest level I can, but I also want to be a doctor. If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
