Excelling Beyond Borders UWI Sportswoman of the Year- Zalika Paul

Eradicating the barrier of impossibility, challenging the mountain of fear, and surpassing the expectations of others are some of the qualities that can be used to describe sporting sensation and Sports Woman of the Year 2009/2010 Zalika Paul. This St. Lucian bred young lady epitomizes the character of a holistic individual who has proven over the years that with the right equation or balance between academics and sports much can be achieved. From as early as primary school Zalika swam until the age of seven and danced up until the age of ten. This of course was not the end of her sporting career as over the years she developed the love, skill and passion for other sports such as volleyball and netball.

So the development of these sports prior to her matriculation to the UWI Mona  was an instrumental tool for the university’s sports department and the university at large since she would be an asset to the volleyball and netball team. Zalika competitively assisted and continues to assist in the achievements of both teams. This was very evident in her performance last year when the university’s netball team won the JNA ‘A’ league netball competition in which she was voted Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the tournament. Zalika does not speak much of her swimming or basketball prowess however she highlighted her Pelican pride when she swam and played basketball at the UWI Games 2009.

Being a third year Medical Science student Zalika’s  approach to balancing academics and sports can be summed up by the philosophical thought or idea ‘the heights by great men reach and kept were not attained by sudden flight but they while their companions slept were upward toiling through the night’.  This is indeed is true of this sporting sensation who while being interviewed made it clear that she attends school in the morning, enthusiastically goes to training in the evenings and study in the nights. This combination has over the years worked for her and as such she uses her medical, athletic and general knowledge to dismiss the claim that sports and academics is not a good combination. Zalika further makes mention of the fact that studies and tests have shown that “sports actually enhances academic achievement, it’s all part of helping you with your general health, being able to focus in class and increasing blood flow to the brain.”

Zalika however does not discharge the fact that sometimes it is rather ethic for her to manage the two especially now when “it’s a bit harder with increase work load, with a little less sleep and less time devoted to training. Sometimes I do less time devoted to studying regrettably but I still try to make up for whatever I can”. So even though her lifestyle is ethic her love, passion and drive to succeed are the essential tools that keeps her focused at all times. She further advises future or present athletes to discharge the myth that the two cannot work as this will only stifle their true potentials. This notion is concretized by two of her personal philosophies ‘don’t quit’ and ‘if at first you don’t succeed try and try again’.

Therefore with a vision and realistic objectives Zalika continues to make strides as she was sports woman of the year for her high school and college St Joseph’s Convent, an island scholar in St. Lucia as a top performer in the area of examinations, has achieved several swimming achievements, played netball for St. Lucia’s under sixteen national team in 2004, was captain and vice captain of quite a few national teams and picked up a few MVP trophies with the JNA/Supreme Ventures ‘A’ league netball competition MVP award as the most recent. However chief among this list is The University of The West Indies Sports woman of the year. Zalika was quite humbled by the fact that she was sportswoman of the year for two consecutive years 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 and since she was not on the island the news of her winning sports woman of the year took her in disbelief until she realized that it was not a prank and she did indeed win one of the premier awards for the night.