This year the students involved in the Club Sports' association were
notified by the university that the group name is to be changed to
Sports Clubs.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse has numerous student-run groups,
but the largest on campus is the Club Sports Organization. It has over
400 student members within the 18 activity and competitive clubs.
The freshly renamed Sports Clubs will no longer be able to use the
UW-L varsity logo on any newly made uniforms or apparel, but if the logo
is already expressed upon team gear, there is no need for change at
this time. The new logo is the Rec. Sports logo, rather than the
varsity athletic logo.
“I think it’s a little demeaning that we cannot use the eagle logo
on our apparel anymore. I understand we are not a varsity team, but we
have no varsity team to compete with. The Women’s Hockey Club is the
only hockey team at this university, so I feel like we are no longer
representing our school in the same way,” said Tori Bystedt, sophomore
and member of the UW-L Women’s Club Hockey Team.
“The change from club sports to sport’s club makes us seem like we
are less like a competitive team and more like a club that meets for
just fun. We put a lot of hard work in, and it seems like the small
change in name takes that away kind of,” said Adam Vance, junior and
member of the UW-L La Crosse Club Team.
Like varsity sports, sports clubs are able to compete against other
universities in a competitive nature, but unlike the varsity sports on
campus, they are not completely university funded.
Sports clubs do
get some funding from UW-L but this only takes place after the club has
withstood two full years of self-funding. Most of the money comes from
fundraising done throughout the season.
Although some members feel as if the grammatical change and disuse of
the UW-L logo is belittling, UW-L has no intent of doing so.
“The National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association, which
is the governing body we work under classifies clubs as Sport Clubs
instead of Club Sports, said Ryan Rudesill, The Interim Coordinator of
Intramurals and Sport Clubs at UW-L. “The main reason we changed was to
stay consistent with them, and other universities in the area”.
Changes have been made within sports clubs, but will remain a large
part of UW-L’s student work. Last year alone, the clubs hosted 38
competitions and competed in 203 contests. Between the members of the
18 clubs, they completed over 815 hours of community service.
