Hi Everyone!
If you’ve been keeping up with my admissions content (no worries if you haven’t, welcome!), you might know that I am the co-captain of our 5C Women’s Club Volleyball team, and that I love it a lot. The time commitment is very manageable for me, and the enrichment I get from the exercise, competition, and my teammates makes it one of my favorite parts of school. I get many questions about club volleyball and club sports in general, so I decided to dedicate a blog to them.
First, there are 3 different ways to be involved in organized sports on campus, in addition to student- and staff-taught drop-in or for-credit PE classes. Here they are listed in order of most to least time-commitment.
- Varsity sports- We have 11 varsity sports and are part of NCAA Division III athletics. Scripps is part of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) sub-consortium for varsity athletics. If you’re interested in varsity sports, I recommend reaching out to a coach. Contact info is on our athletics website.
- Club sports- This is what I’m going to talk about!
- Intramural sports- Run by CMS Recreation, there are 4 seasons of intramurals in a school year. You make or join a team of your choice and have maybe 2-3 games a week, usually with no practice time.
There are lots of ways to be involved in organized sports, at whatever level you’re interested in and in whatever combination you can manage in your schedule. But now onto club sports!
We have over 20 different club sports, and they are 5C clubs, with participation open to students from all five schools. There is a lot of variety between the structure of the clubs, so for any specific questions it’s good to find someone on the team and ask, but I’ll try to outline some general characteristics.
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How clubs work
Like the other clubs on campus, club sports are student-run with the support of a faculty advisor. This is especially important because of our need to use facilities and equipment, and that is helpfully organized by the club sports advisors at CMS and Pomona-Pitzer. Each club gets funding from the student governments of the different colleges and it is up to the club president/s and the rest of the board to organize and allocate the money and the team’s activities.
Club sports teams tend to expect their players to be competitive and most clubs compete in some Southern California league of colleges, and even on the National level. While it’s probably not as busy as a varsity sport, teams will have multiple competitions or tournaments throughout the year and try to keep the team at a competitive level.
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Experience level
Some clubs host tryouts and expect their members to have prior experience in the sport. Volleyball is like this, for example. Other clubs have tryouts and also welcome people new to the sport, while some clubs have no expectation of experience. Our rugby team, for example, is really popular with Scripps students and almost nobody joins the team with prior rugby experience. If you are interested in continuing a sport you played in high school, you can likely find a club to join, and there are also many chances to try new sports.
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Time commitment
Club sports generally expect time commitment and dedication from the participants, especially in team sports. For volleyball, we practice twice a week for two hours each, and have at least 3 all day tournaments. As the saying goes, you are a student-athlete, so your academic responsibilities come first, but club sports are an activity that require you to commit some amount of time to your team. Practices are either on campus or nearby (like a local climbing gym), and most clubs compete around SoCal, unless you go to Nationals, so you would probably have a max 2-hour drive to any competition. Some clubs also have weightlifting and conditioning outside of practice.
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Expenses
As I mentioned above, clubs do get funding, but how far that goes depends on the club. In volleyball, for example, our funding usually covers our league fees, transportation costs, and an extra pre-season tournament. The balls and net are part of the gym, and the individual players are responsible for their shoes and kneepads. That being said, we are one of the only clubs that doesn’t charge dues, or basically a participation fee that funds different parts of the club. Most clubs do charge something, and often players will get a shirt or sweatshirt or a coach or something else for that extra money. The fees are approximately around $35-50, but as I said, women’s volleyball doesn’t currently charge dues so I’m not 100% sure on that one. If the cost of participating in a club sport is prohibitive, please consider reaching out the captains and they will work with you to find a solution.
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Bonus!
Since we are small schools, our main athletic facilities are also used for our recreational athletics, so there is a chance that if you host a home tournament, you will be competing in the big gym with all the seating and it feels pretty cool if I do say so myself.
I think that this covers most of what I usually get questions about! I hope it was informative 🙂 If you have more questions feel free to email me ([email protected]) and I will do my best to answer helpfully. Additionally, below is a recording of a webinar I led with the CMS recreation staff where they talk about their programming and what resources CMS Rec has for our students, including club sports. Check it out if you’d like!
Until next time,
Siena