Alexander Bunyan

A New Court, a Familiar Home

An education student helps build something St. Mary’s has never had before.

Alexander Bunyan knows St. Mary’s. He completed his undergraduate degree here, returned to pursue education, and now gets to represent the university in a different way: as a member of its first badminton team.

There’s something fitting about a future teacher signing up to be a student of a sport. Alexander has played badminton before. What he wants now is to find out how much more there is to learn.

An inaugural season offers a particular kind of responsibility. There are no previous St. Mary’s badminton teams to measure yourself against, no established version of how this group does things. The habits being formed now are the ones someone else may inherit later. Alexander gets to be part of that beginning at a school that already holds years of his life.

He wants the opportunity to stretch him. School competition gave him an introduction; collegiate badminton gives him opponents whose experience may exceed his own. That is precisely why he wants instruction. Being coachable, in his view, is part of being competitive. You cannot learn much while insisting you already know enough.

Basketball was his main sport growing up, but racquet sports always had a place in his life. His dad played squash and helped introduce him to that world. School badminton followed, with singles and doubles offering two versions of competition he enjoyed: the support of a teammate and the responsibility of being alone across the net from an opponent.

He didn’t compete outside school teams. This season, formal training and collegiate competition give him a chance to turn that foundation into something more demanding.

His goal is to develop from an intermediate player into someone who can compete with athletes who have spent considerably longer in the sport. He knows enthusiasm won’t erase that experience gap overnight. He also knows where the work begins.

“Showing up and doing my best is still so much better than not showing up at all.”

On difficult days, that becomes a manageable assignment. Arrive. Listen. Give what you have. Repeat often enough to discover what changes.

His ambitions reach into three connected parts of his life: athlete, student, person. Improving one does not give him permission to neglect the others. He is preparing for a profession where patience and explaining a skill matter, while entering a season that will require him to receive plenty of that patience and instruction himself.

“Nothing is instantaneous,” he says.

It is a useful belief to bring to a new program. The first results will tell part of the story. How willingly the team learns from them will help determine the rest. Alexander hopes to contribute both effort and the enjoyment that makes people want to return for another practice.

Alexander wants to win with grace, respect, and dignity. He hopes coaches remember him as someone coachable, teammates remember having fun with him, and the inaugural team benefits from everything he can contribute.

The university is already part of his story. Now he gets to help write a new part of its own.