Club sports deserve better access to fields

Club sports provide a great opportunity for students to participate in the sports they love. Central to the needs of club sports is the ability to have available space to hold practices, games and tournaments. The athletics administration has been less than friendly to the need of field usage by club sports. Hundreds of students belong to over a dozen different club sports. These organizations allow students to play at a level higher than intramural sports, but without the commitment of being in an athletic program. One would tend to believe these clubs would be allowed field usage, since they clearly provide a valuable sporting alternative. However, club sports currently are not allowed to use any of the athletic practice fields. Instead, they have been granted time on the Depot Campus field, the "fields" across from East campus and whatever reservation times are allowed for the Greer Field House at night. Men's and women's soccer, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, field hockey and rugby all compete for field time at those three venues. Some students have argued that club sports do have access to an actual field- the Depot Campus field. I had never been to the Depot Campus field until this week when I decided to see what condition it was in. Yes, it is an actual field and has out-of-bounds lines marked on it. The condition of the field, however, is well below par. The grass is awful and the field is by no means flat. Rather, it is bumpy and poorly maintained, thus increasing the chance of injury during play. Another large disadvantage is the field is not on the Storrs campus. The second current field option for club sports is the "field" across from East campus. This option can barely even be called a "field," as it is simply a grassy area on campus that is by no means flat. This scenario creates additional problems for teams trying to practice and for students trying to cross the lawn to get to class. The last option currently open to club sports is to attempt to reserve a time to use the Greer Field House. Reservation times for this facility are strictly limited and hard to get, especially with several clubs competing to reserve times. Therefore, this option is severely limited due to time constraints. Club sports deserve better than these three "options." The ultimate frisbee team is a perfect example of a club sports team doing the best it can with the lack of resources provided by the University. With a membership of over 350 students, the ultimate frisbee team practices three days a week and holds pickup games four days a week. The team practices on the "fields" near East Campus, but cannot host home tournament games because there are not enough appropriate open fields available to them. Instead, they can simply scrimmage with other schools at home and are forced to travel to their tournaments. Simply put, ultimate frisbee, like all other club sports is a group of students who have fun, are passionate about their sport and must do their best with what the university provides them. The university is obviously in no position financially to build more fields as a result of difficulties to fully fund the operational budget for UConn's primary purpose of academics. However, several solutions to the field problem exist. The most obvious and reasonable solution is to open up the practice fields near Morrone Stadium for club sports. Several of the fields behind Morrone Stadium and the soccer practice field would be ideal for club sports. The use of these fields would have to be conditioned on the fact that club sports would be allowed to use these fields only when they were not being used by the athletic teams. The counter-argument for opening up the practice fields has always been that club sports would tear up the athletic fields. The athletic department is right to say that additional wear and tear will occur on the fields due to the simple fact that they are being played on more times during the week. However, the advantages of opening up the practice fields are numerous and outweigh the one sole reasonable argument of the Athletic Department. Open use of the practice fields would benefit hundreds of students on this campus. Club sports would finally be able to have home tournament games at UConn. As of now, sports such as soccer play their games away because they do not have an open field to use. Opening the athletic fields will also allow club sports to practice on a good quality field unlike practicing on the bumpy and injury causing "field" across from East. Having a field that is safe to practice on is a fundamental right any athlete playing at any level should be entitled to. Finally, I am sure club sports teams would appreciate use of the athletic fields and definitely would do their best to ensure the up-keep of the fields. The opening of Rentschler Field also presents an interesting solution for club sports. The usage of Memorial Stadium is now primarily for practice purposes. Now that Memorial Stadium is not being used for home football games, it could also be used and opened up for club sports. UConn has plenty of fields that are not used for competitive athletic games and that are only used as practice fields. If opened to club sports usage, these fields would benefit a large segment of the UConn population. The issue of field usage by club sports impacts a large fraction of the student body and is therefore an issue that student leaders and student government should be concerned about. Club sports deserve better. Club sports deserve access to the athletic practice fields.

Sources: Club Sports Council http://www.ca.uconn.edu/CSIsportsclubs.htm