From Doubt to a Doctorate – My Unusual Academic Journey and What is Next

Rugby is a sport synonymous with media reports of steroid use across all levels of the game. UK Anti-Doping sanctions corroborate this, showing that rugby league and union make up over half of all Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) ever reported by the organisation, with most of these ADRVs stemming from the use of steroids or cocaine. With this in mind, and anecdotal evidence of further problems with the use of opioid painkillers, I, supported by the guidance and expertise of my supervisory team (Dr Laurie Patterson and Professor Sue Backhouse), sought to delve deeper. Not to try and catch people out, but to understand why these behaviours were happening, and attempt to figure out how to prevent them.

If you were to see the announcement celebrating the defence of my thesis around the Carnegie School of Sport building, it might seem that my PhD was a major success story. However, I had an unusual journey to get here, and many, many hurdles throughout the process. So that this piece doesn’t come across as a cry for help, and because the hurdles mentioned are mostly unique to my experience (e.g., a silly number of injuries), I am not going to touch on them too much. It is also important to note that I am writing this blog not to paint myself as some kind of ‘rags to riches’ academic genius, but to show that with the right support, completing a PhD is an achievable feat. Throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I never thought academia would be for me – I went to an average state school, and I didn’t see people in academia like me. Making it seem like an unviable option.

I chose to attend university primarily to play rugby, with an undergraduate degree in sport and exercise science in the background. However, I quickly learnt, after multiple serious injuries and concussions (and eventual retirement aged 23), that this was a terrible mindset to have. It wasn’t until my final year of undergraduate study that I essentially grew up and started focusing on my degree, by which point I had gained a strong interest in sport psychology and landed Dr Laurie Patterson as my dissertation supervisor. I definitely was unaware at the time, but this had a significant domino effect, and shaped not only my academic career but me as a person. Around six years later (yesterday as I am writing this), we sat in the café on campus discussing what next after completing my PhD.

Repeatedly, people have asked me “How have you done that much work?” or “How do you stay motivated?” in regard to doing a PhD. To be honest the answers are synonymous: Find a something that you are really interested in, and have effective support. I have a real passion for understanding behaviour, and a motivation to help support people who struggle with substance use and misuse, especially in rugby. I have also been extremely lucky that I have had such patient supervisors in Laurie and Sue, if you were to read my undergraduate dissertation and compare it to my PhD writing you would think it was written by a different person. They built my confidence and capability in writing and research from the ground up, to a point where it is now good enough for a PhD thesis and publication. It isn’t just the formal support that is needed to complete a PhD. Being part of multiple different social environments away from my PhD served as an avenue to de-stress from the workload of conducting and writing up research. Coaching a rugby team that has pretty much no interest in academia is grounding, and provided an environment where I could completely move my focus from the stress of a PhD to the stress of trying to win games. Additionally, having a network of friends and loved ones who work across many different walks of life was important to show that ultimately, the challenges of writing a PhD are not as hard as what a lot of people experience during their work.

After waffling for the past five paragraphs, now is the part of this blog post where I explain what was actually asked of me in the invitation to write this: What is next? I have been asked this countless times since I passed my viva, and the honest answer is I don’t know. I currently have some very minor amendments to make to my thesis before I can make my PhD official, and I have four studies that I want to publish in academic journals. Alongside that, I am focused on ensuring that my research findings have impact through knowledge transfer and exchange. I am also aiming to work with organisations and charities to create and evaluate interventions and support networks aimed at preventing and managing substance misuse in high performance rugby. While the future seems uncertain, for now, the joy of completing my PhD and diving into purposeful, impactful work is nothing less than exciting.

Thank you for reading, and If you have any questions about my research, please free to contact me via email.