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Columbia CollEgE Today CLuB SPORTS
to make that easier.
“We want to establish a relationship between club sports and
the Alumni Association,” he says. “If we get greater involvement
and interaction … well, the money will come from the alums
someday, too, and that will really help the teams.”
Some teams have taken the initiative. Earlier this year, the Tae
Kwon Do Club hosted its second annual alumni dinner, and the
graduates returned to Morningside Heights bearing valuable
advice.
“For any student who has a question, there’s an alum who has
an answer,” says Yerick, who added that one of her team’s instructors
is a Columbia graduate, Roshan Bharwaney ’05 TC. “It’s nice
to have them around and to go to them for the answer. They’ve
been around the block and know what they’re talking about.”
Perhaps the greatest recent success of alumni and students
working together to improve a club team came last year, when
the Sailing Club needed a new fleet of boats. With some guidance
from an alumni board, the team set upon an ambitious plan
of cold-calling and letter-writing to Sailing Club alumni, capped
off with a fundraising dinner. All told, they brought in about
$115,000, well more than the $55,000 needed for the fleet of 10
new 14-foot-long boats.
“It was the hardest thing we’ve done but also the most rewarding,”
says Johnson, the team president, who is from Seattle. “We
tried to build up a base of alums to contact, and they responded and
made this happen.”
Members of the 30-person sailing team rent a van three times a
week from September to November and again in March and April
and drive north to City Island in the Bronx, where they practice
on the waters of Long Island Sound. They compete nearly every
weekend at schools such as Cornell, Dartmouth and the Naval
Academy, but now, thanks to the new boats, they soon will be
able to welcome their rivals to their own turf, or more accurately,
water.
“We’ve put Columbia University on the sailing map,” says
Johnson, her voice brimming with pride. “Now, we can finally
host regattas, too.”
Columbia hosted one in April and will host two more in the
fall, including an alumni regatta in October.
“We’ve heard from so many alums who tell us, ‘We always
wanted to do this — to buy these boats, to host these races — but
you guys were the ones to finally make it happen.’ It’s such a
feeling of pride and accomplishment,” says Johnson. Members of
the team also will start teaching a sailing physical education class
for undergraduates.
an article in Spectator last fall posed the question of
whether the sailing squad would consider petitioning
to become a varsity sport, an opportunity another
club team recently jumped at. Completing a process
that began nearly a decade earlier, the men’s Squash Club and the
women’s Squash Club each were granted approval to elevate to
the varsity level for the 2010–11 season.
In order for a team to make the leap, Jines explains, it must
have high levels of success and participation as well as comply
with pertinent NCAA and Title IX rules. It then needs the approval
of the Athletics Department and the Faculty Athletic Committee,
which governs the sports programs at the school.
“It was a really proud moment for the club sports program,
the Athletics Department and the school when the squash clubs
were elevated,” says Jines, who notes that an elevation to varsity
is a rare event. The last team to do so was softball in 2001.
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Anne Cheng ’11 Barnard compiled a 13–5 record in 2010–11 after
women’s squash went from a club sport to the varsity level.
PhOTOS: COuRTESY COLuMBIA CLuB SPORTS
Both squash teams fared well in their debut varsity seasons. The
men’s squad went 13–5 while the women went 12–6, and each team
sent competitors to the national championship meets in March.
“We were the last Ivy League school not to have a varsity
squad,” says Liz Chu ’12, a captain of the women’s team, who
grew up in New York City. “The alums were pushing for it, and
the players were on board completely. It’s a lot more work but
the trade-off is worth it. We have extra resources now: stipends
for food, free uniforms and transportation, and tutors if you’re
having a little trouble with a class.
“It’s a great level of prestige,” says Chu, whose team will
compete in a full Ivy League schedule next year. “It’s something
we wanted.”
Will sailing be next to make the move to varsity status? Not
necessarily.
“Do we have the school support and funding we need to make
it happen? Yes, on both fronts,” Johnson says. “I can understand
why some teams want to make the move, but I don’t think it’s
right for us.”
Several of the nation’s top sailing teams, like Brown’s squad,
are club level and not varsity, she explains. And if the team leaves
the realm of club sports behind, Johnson fears that what her team
would gain in resources it would lose in control.
“Students wouldn’t be running everything anymore,” she says.
“And I’m afraid we’d no longer have one of the key elements of
our team: We bring freshmen onto our boats who have never been
on the water, and we know we’re training our future captains.
“They’ll learn and grow into that role,” says Johnson, “and I
think that’s what club sports are all about.”
Did you participate in club sports at Columbia? Today’s clubs would like
to hear from their alumni. Contact Brian Jines, director of intramural
and club sports, at bj2149@columbia.edu, and he will forward your note
to the respective club leaders.
Jonathan lemire ’01 is a staff writer for the New York Daily News.