Kara Henderson will miss the team’s final training session this week, but the 22-year-old has a pretty good excuse.
Henderson has a Molecular and Cellular Biology exam in the city and won’t make it to Box Hill in time for the team’s captain’s run.
Henderson is studying Biomedicine at Melbourne University and this is just one example where she has had to juggle her study and football commitments.
“I study 40 hours a week,” Henderson explains.
“They consider it the same time commitment as a full-time job.”
Henderson’s life as a university student coincidentally started at the same time as her football career three years ago.
In that time, Henderson has become better at managing the two.
“I used to struggle balancing my study with footy, work and my social life, but I think I’ve got better at it each year.
“It just means that you have to be constantly organised.”
The biggest challenge has been the time requirements of both, however Henderson said that in the end her two pursuits balance each other.
“I think the hardest thing is obviously the time commitment that both require, but at the same time I don’t think I would cope studying if I didn’t have footy as well.
“I kind of like being able to study for a few hours and then go to training and then just not think about it for another few hours.
“I think it really helps to break it up, I’d probably go crazy if I didn’t have footy.’
This season Henderson has found herself as a regular in Hawthorn’s VFLW side playing on the wing.
“At the moment I’m just trying to play as many VFL games as I can, just trying to get that experience under my belt.
“I didn’t come into the game until I was 19 so I didn’t have that long to develop, so I’m just trying to develop as much as I can.
“The ultimate goal is to make it to AFLW and I’m going to try my best to get there and I think at the moment what that means training as hard as I can, playing as many VFLW games as they can and just soaking up all the wisdom from Paddy, all the other coaches and all the other more experienced players as well.”
Hawthorn’s VFLW side will play Essendon this Saturday morning at Windy Hill at 11.30am.
