Hassam Munir, Sports and Health Editor
Featured image courtesy of York Lions
In her many years with the Lions, track-and-field athlete Sheereen Harris has been an outstanding performer and leader both on and off the track. In just the past two weeks, the graduating senior won five gold medals for the Lions, adding to her impressive list of achievements.
Her career with the Lions took off in 2014, when she helped the 4×200-metre relay team go from an 11th-place national ranking to the top spot in the country. In 2015, she won gold in the 300-metre race at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport finals, added another gold medal in the relay, and scored points in other contests to help the Lions win the team bronze medal for the first time in 19 years. She was named the CIS first-team all-Canadian, an honour she achieved again in 2015 to cap off an even more phenomenal season.
Her Ontario University Athletics achievements in the past two seasons are too numerous to mention. In the current season, Harris has won multiple gold medals in the OUA meets and is ready to make her way to the CIS finals, where she is regarded as one of the fastest female athletes in Canada, one last time before she graduates.
“My experience as a student-athlete at York has been nothing shy of incredible,” says Harris.
“I honestly believe that the programs, facilities, and people here have allowed me to develop into the person I am today. I’ve been provided with so many great opportunities here at York, and have been taken out of my comfort zone on so many occasions to challenge myself academically, athletically, and personally.”
Harris is grateful for the people who have supported her every step of the way in her five years with the Lions.
“I’ve also always had a very consistent support system to help me overcome obstacles and grow as a person between teammates, coaches, and athletic administration,” she says.
Harris’ performance as an athlete gets attention, as she was chosen to carry the Pan Am flame into the CIBC Pan Am/Parapan Am Athletics Stadium on campus. However, she does not let any of it take away from her commitment to her education. She has achieved CIS academic all-Canadian honours for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years, and in the 2015-16 academic year she was awarded the Patricia Murray Excellence Bursary for Interuniversity Athletics by the Lions.
“My academics have always been a priority for me,” says Harris. “It has definitely been difficult to manage both academics and athletics at the same time, but I’ve been a student-athlete since my first year and don’t know anything different. Although it’s difficult it is definitely possible to excel at both, it’s all just a matter of deciding what you want, working towards it, and not making excuses as to why you aren’t where you want to be.”
Harris has made time to be involved in the York community as well. She is the current president of the York Sport Council, a position she also held last year. This organization for student-athletes sets up initiatives such as raising money for Light the Night Canada, providing a recently immigrated family with winter essentials to welcome them to Canada and to the York community, and collecting food donations for York’s food bank.
More recently, the York Sport Council partnered with Shoreham Public Sports and Wellness Academy to get student-athletes to go out to local elementary schools and teach a sport clinic for the children. Partially thanks to her own efforts, Harris says she has seen “an overall increase in people interested in getting involved and more enthusiasm” for community involvement in the past five years.
As she gets ready to graduate and move on with her professional career, she has a few words to say to the students who will carry the torch after her.
“The advice I would give to all student-athletes would be to appreciate the journey,” she says.
“I think sometimes people get so caught up focusing on the outcome of each game, meet, or even each season that they aren’t able to appreciate the small victories that happen every day in practices. Especially in athletics, there will be great times and there will be plenty of not too great times, but when you look back at your time as an athlete, you’ll remember the process more than your losses or even your wins.”
“The same advice [goes to] all students as well. Just as the good times won’t last forever, neither will the bad. I have a quote that I constantly remind myself of when things aren’t going as well as I’d like them to: ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain’.”
