Play at the Plate

I know a few people who play for Boston University’s club sports teams, and they all love the experience. They get to play a sport they love with new friends and get to represent their school – all without the varsity level of commitment. In fact, compared with varsity sports, the commitment for many of these sports isn’t much at all.

Don’t think these sports aren’t competitive because of the smaller commitment, however. Just because they’re not varsity doesn’t mean the participants won’t do whatever is needed to win.

I also know there are many other athletes at Boston University that would enjoy playing for a club team. After all, we supposedly are the third most-fit campus in the United States according to Men’s Fitness. But unfortunately, most popular sports aren’t club sports here. In fact, any sport that’s varsity at BU isn’t on the club level. That means club soccer, basketball, ice hockey (though inline hockey is an option) and softball – just to name a few – are not offered.

So if you want to play a sport like soccer, you are left with two extremes. Either you make the huge commitment of trying to make the cut for the excellent men’s or women’s teams, or you play intramurals, where you get five games with people who couldn’t care less about the sport and the results.

These are two options that don’t cater to a lot of former high school athletes who attend BU. Many of us would love to play in competitive leagues where the games mean something and we can represent our school. Intramurals are fun only for so long until you get the desire for some real competition.

The situation requires the efforts of both the students and the administration. Students must start club sports, but they also need the help from the Physical Education and Recreation Department (PERD) to get off the ground.

The administration needs not worry about interest in these club sports; the bigger sports have plenty of students interested in joining. The club baseball team recently had over 60 students attend tryouts, and a sport many wouldn’t even consider a big sport – men’s volleyball – has both an A team and a B team.

So why not make the investment in urging students to begin more clubs? PERD doesn’t need to start anything, but should just give students a nudge toward starting.

Clearly, there is interest in the Terrier community to have more serious club sports. So what is preventing BU from encouraging the induction of a few more clubs? The cost isn’t anywhere near that of a varsity sport. In fact, many of the club athletes provide their own equipment. BU has the money and resources to support the sports, from courts to vans. I’m not advocating the starting of eight club sports in a year. It has to be a gradual process and not all varsity sports need to be offered at the club level. But basketball, for men and women, should come first.

Why basketball? Well, if you’ve been in the Fitness and Recreation Center during its peak hours, you would understand. The students here love to play basketball. Walk into FitRec around 7 p.m. and all the basketball courts will be filled with pickup games. And while many of these players come from the casual mold, if you’ve ever played in one of these games, you know there’s always a kid or two who are pretty good. Maybe not varsity good – but certainly club good.

Plus, with FitRec’s abundance of basketball courts, it wouldn’t be hard to reserve one for practice and games. The club teams could even use the courts in Case Gymnasium. They wouldn’t be picky about where they played – players would probably just be thrilled to be playing meaningful sports again.

After this, two soccer teams could be added the following year, and from there the administration could judge how well the program is going and add teams accordingly.

Not only would club sports make former high school athletes happy, they would also go a long way toward making intramural games more about fun and less about intense competition. Many students join intramurals to have fun, not to play with former all-county athletes and get killed. The different levels don’t really solve this problem either, as too many teams are left wondering what level to join because they want to play seriously, but not too seriously.

So let’s join together, students and administration, working to begin and grow together. BU may not be known for sports, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even give them a chance to flourish. And the only way for sports to flourish is to start more teams.