Morgan Franklin wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue to play lacrosse in college or concentrate on earning a pre-med degree.

During a recruiting visit to Furman, she decided she could do both – and more.

“Furman is a school where I could pursue as many opportunities as I wanted to,” says Morgan, a Preseason All-Southern Conference team selection and a Paladin team captain for the 2020 season, albeit one affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m sad that my lacrosse career was cut short during my senior season,” she says. “But I feel I’ve had a unique college experience because of my lacrosse career.”

Balancing the rigors of being a Division I athlete with her studies was challenging.

“The experience of being a student-athlete teaches you the importance of time management and having a good work ethic,” says Morgan, recipient of the Furman Bisher Academic Athletic Scholarship.

Because practice, games and classes filled much of her time during the season, Morgan scheduled other learning opportunities for the off-season and summers.

After her freshman year, she traveled with the lacrosse team to Amsterdam to play the Dutch national team and to South Africa, where she went cage diving with sharks. During another summer, she helped research an inherited heart disease, arrhythmogenic right ventricular myopathy.

But for Morgan, who will attend the Medical College of Georgia in the fall, a pivotal moment at Furman came during a late Saturday night shift shadowing two Prisma Health emergency room doctors at Greenville Memorial Hospital.