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Tyler Lench (Taylor, 2014 -15) - OC of the Month – August 2022
Monday, 1 August 2022
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Our August OC of the Month is Tyler Lench (Taylor, 2014 -15). Tyler recently represented NZ in Hockey playing for the NZ Vantage Blacksticks in the Hockey World Cup in the Netherlands and Spain in July as well as at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in August. Tyler has overcome significant setbacks in her hockey career, suffering two separate ACL injuries, to make her way back to the top and compete and represent her country at the highest level. Tyler’s international hockey debut was in the Trans -Tasman series in 2021. In addition to her hockey career, after graduating from Auckland University, Tyler has spent the past 2 years working for KPMG as a Financial Risk Consultant before being promoted to a Senior Consultant. Tyler has recently made the move to the Amsterdam to pursue her dream career as a full time Hockey player. In our interview with Tyler, we hear about her time at King’s College and what her role as a hockey player involves. When you were at King’s College, what did you want to do for a career after you graduated? I attended Kings College from 2014-2015 and was in Taylor House. I always wanted to be a Blackstick and represent my country and alongside that I wanted to have a career in a science/business field, but I wasn’t sure what that was at the time. What is your best memory of your time at King’s College? There is no one memory that sticks out but rather the whole two years. My favourite part of being at Kings would have to be the people I met, and friends made. Which staff member do you remember most favourably from King's College and why? I am not one to really play favourites so it’s hard to pick one teacher in particular - I am very grateful for all the teachers I had and for the roles they played in that time of my life. What advice would you give to your school age self? The advice I would give my school age self is to slow down, timing is everything. What is meant to be, will be - don’t try to force it. Tell us about yourself now and what you do for a career? Over the last 2 years, I was working full time at KPMG as a Senior Consultant in the Financial Risk Management Team as well as playing hockey for the NZ Blacksticks. In June 2022, I took a career break from KPMG to pursue hockey professionally in The Netherlands. I was fortunate enough to be selected to represent NZ at the Hockey World Cup and the Commonwealth Games and have now settled in Amsterdam and will be playing for HC Bloemendaal. What does/did your job involve? My job now as a professional hockey player as involves a lot of training! Currently, we have 3-4 turf sessions, 2-3 gym sessions and 1 fitness session in a week. As well as this, we dedicate time to video sessions to scout tour opponent and review ourselves. I have also been involved with coaching of youth players at the club which has also taken up a lot of my time as well! What are the most challenging parts of your job? I consider myself to be very privileged to have been able to turn my passion for hockey into essentially a full time job, but this comes with ups and downs. The hardest thing about my job is twofold - losing and not performing to a required expectation. It is very easy to fall into a rut but turning up every day in the pursuit of being better than the previous day is for me, key to overcoming these obstacles. What would you say is your biggest achievement to date? My biggest achievement to date was representing New Zealand at the World Cup (placed 5th which is the second best result for NZ) and Commonwealth Games where we placed 4th. Although we fell short of the goals that we had set ourselves, it is a privilege to be able to wear the Fern and represent your country. What is the single thing that would most improve the quality of your life? Extra time would be the single thing that would make life better - there is so much to do and see, especially since moving to a new country but we all have the same 24 hours a day - it just depends on what we do with it! What are the three objects you would take with you to a desert island? On a desert island, I would take my best mates, some water and a good book How would you like to be remembered? This is a hard question to answer. I think I would like to be remembered as someone who chose to define her own life instead of going with the flow; someone who made the most out of every opportunity that arose. If you know an Old Collegian that would make a great OC of the Month please get in touch at: kcoca@kingscollege.co.nz |