York University Athletics

Irvin Studin was the epitome of a true student-athlete, thriving both athletically and academically in four years at York University and as a member of the men’s soccer program from 1995-99.
 
On the field, he earned two CIAU all-Canadian awards and three OUAA all-star awards as a central midfielder while helping to turn the program into a winning one. The squad made two appearances at the national championship tournament in his time and earned a bronze medal in 1997, the program’s best finish since winning the national title 20 years prior.
 
While he remains one of the top scorers and assist-makers in York soccer history, Studin, who began playing at the age of four at the encouragement of his father, a lifelong fan of the sport, really made a name for himself in the classroom. He was an exceptional student, earning academic all-Canadian honours four times and becoming a Rhodes scholar, and he used his four years at York as a foundation for a tremendous international career both within soccer and professionally.
 
“York has always been my spiritual home, in my ways. From the soccer field to the lecture room, to the great friends I made and mentors I found in my time at the university, I count myself very fortunate to have spent as much time as I did at this wonderful institution.”
 
While still at York, Studin played with the Toronto Lynx on an amateur contract and represented Canada at the 1997 Maccabiah Games and the 1999 Pan-American Maccabi Games. After graduating with a bachelor of business administration degree from the Schulich School of Business in 1999, he went to Oxford University to continue both his studies and his soccer career.
 
“Oxford was wonderful, a bit of a dream world in retrospect,” he says of his time in England. “I studied philosophy, politics and economics, a classical Oxford degree, while also playing varsity soccer with the Oxford University Association Football Club. The standard of football was high and I was in great shape, physically and technically, during that period of my career.”
 
Studin has turned his degrees and experiences in soccer – something he says taught him about team dynamics, human psychology and performance under pressure – into a successful career. He spent a number of years in Ottawa at the Privy Council Office, as well as in Australia at the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is now at the University of Toronto, where he serves as the program director and assistant professor in the School of Public Policy and Governance and this fall he is in Singapore as a visiting senior fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is also the editor-in-chief and publisher of Global Brief magazine.
 
Since first coming to York nearly 20 years ago, Studin has accomplished plenty and has had the opportunity to take in many different experiences all over the world. He attributes his success to many different factors that combined to make him the person he has become.
 
“I’ve always been very competitive, curious and a quasi-perfectionist, and I’ve always demanded a lot of myself,” he says. “I also grew up with wonderful, supportive parents who exposed me to anything and everything, from sport (soccer, hockey, tennis) to academics to music, art and languages. I’ve never had just one dimension at play.”
 
York and the men’s soccer program were the beneficiaries of his many abilities, and he remains to this day one of the most exceptional student-athletes ever to represent the University.