Baz represneting Loughborough Lightning women's rugby (right) and University of Exeter Netball 1st team (left)

Sports Scholars search-where are they now? Bethan Zeidler

Former Netball Sports Scholar Bethan Zeidler made her debut at an elite level in her 3rd sport since University in the Tyrell's Premiership 15s. We caught up with Bethan (Baz) to find out what she's been up to since graduation...

1.       Following graduation what’s your journey been?

 “Since graduating from Exeter I moved straight to Nottingham to be part of the Girls4Gold talent ID programme for sprint kayak. I trained full time in this programme for 2 years until May 2015. At this point I decided to stop as I was not enjoying kayaking and decided I wanted to focus on my career instead. I started working at a gap year company based in Nottingham in their marketing department.  After gaining some valuable experience I wanted to join a larger marketing team and moved to work at Loughborough University in the marketing department for Loughborough sport. I first tried playing rugby as a taster session in June and after 3 months found myself in the starting team of the brand new franchise Loughborough Lightning playing in the women's premier 15's!”

2.       What are your sporting and non-sporting goals for the next year?

“My non-sporting goals are to develop as much as I can in my marketing role and expand my knowledge of event management. My sporting goal is to consistently make the starting team for Lightning and to continue to improve in rugby. I would love for us to make the final too!"

3.       What are you enjoying most about playing rugby?

“I enjoy the team element of rugby which is similar to when I played netball. I also really enjoy learning a new sport with the challenges it presents and having to problem solve as I go along. Scoring my first ever try on my debut was also pretty special!”

4.       What do you miss most from University?

“Everything!! Mostly I miss living with my friends, I think you take it for granted that you can see everybody every day and it’s so easy to pop next door or down the road to say hi! Now we are all spread all over the country so it’s really hard to all meet up. I also miss (University of Exeter Netball Club (EUNC))".

5.       What was the most valuable thing you learnt during your experience at Exeter?

“I think time management was one of the most valuable things I learnt at Uni. In my final year I juggled, playing netball in the High Performance Programme (HPP) set up, being club captain of EUNC, secretary of AU exec and completing my final year and dissertation. This experience really aided me when I also started trialling for Girls4Gold in Easter of my final year, having to complete a 6 week training camp in Nottingham whilst writing my dissertation. All this has equipped me to now be able to balance my training schedule and playing rugby at a high level with working full time".

6.       If you could give one piece of advice to an incoming 1st year High Performance athlete at University of Exeter what would it be?

“Take advantage of every opportunity given to you at Exeter. Work hard to get the most out of training (even at 7am on a Monday morning) as there are not many places that will give you the opportunity, facilities and support to train like a professional athlete once you leave University”.

If you are interested in trying women's rugby union at University of Exeter please come along to their Talent Transfer session on Wednesday 4th October 2.30-4pm on the rubber crumb. Please show your interest by emailing Women's Rugby Coach Jo Yapp j.yapp@exeter.ac.uk  

Date: 29 September 2017