‘The point
at which we’d
say it’s becoming
too much like
a varsity sport
is when we
realize we don’t
have time to do
anything else
outside of classes.
We’re like,
“You know,
coach, we want
to. We want to
get better. But
three practices
a week is even
more of a time
commitment.” ’
Virginia Ariail
realize we don’t have time to do anything
else outside of classes,” Ariail said. “We’re like,
‘You know, coach, we want to. We want to
get better. But three practices a week is even
more of a time commitment.’”
One cannot imagine a member of, say,
the women’s varsity soccer team uttering
even half of those sentences to Anson Dorrance ’ 74. But just as sport clubs choose
their players and officers, they also hire and
fire their coaches, who are expected only
to provide guidance about team play, not
team organization. Members decide how
much is too much when it comes to time.
“We practice three nights a week, but
usually Wednesday is our best night,” Monroe said. “People have other things going
on, especially when basketball season starts,
people want to watch those games. And
then there’s Monday Night Football, and the
football games on Sunday.”
When was the last time you heard a
national champion admit he couldn’t go to
practice because the Patriots were playing
the Vikings?
Liz Shamseldin ’06 (MA) might not use
the NFL as her reason for keeping sports
low-key, but the volleyball veteran did find
a home for three years on the women’s
club team at Carolina while she worked
toward her graduate degree in statistics. She
was cut from her varsity team as a freshman
at Sonoma State University in California,
but when she was invited for another tryout two years later, she declined.
“My roommate played for the team,
and she was miserable,” Shamseldin said.
“There were these ridiculous practice
schedules, she was traveling all the time,
missing her classes. It was really hard for
her to keep up. For me, it’s just something
to balance out the intensity of my studies.”
Nurse Rassie
Muqtasid checks on
club soccer player
Keith Clithero during
a platelet donation.
In the background is
a teammate,
Jonathan Copp. The
more community
service these
athletes perform, the
more funding they
can get from the
sport clubs office.
Follow the leader
Sport clubs get the query so often that
it’s No. 1 on its Web site’s frequently-asked-questions list: Yes, they are indeed very different from campus intramurals. Unlike in
intramurals, clubs compete year-round and
against other universities. They don’t give
themselves clever team names such as Soaring White Chocolate, as one intramural
basketball team did this year, and they have
officers: a president, a vice president and a
treasurer, in addition to the usual team captains. But the biggest difference may be
that club sports have to work before they
can play.
