Club teams hold presence on campus
Two members of the GCSU men’s soccer club team square off against each other at team practice.
For those college students who want to play sports on a competitive level, but the school does not offer a collegiate sport team of choice, many turn to club sports teams. Current clubs teams at GCSU include ultimate frisbee, men’s soccer, women’s volleyball, swimming and hockey.
Senior history major Peter Crupie is a member of the men’s ultimate frisbee club team of GCSU “Disconnected.” The team is composed of about 18-20 male GCSU students, who compete through an organization called USA Ultimate, which is the sole sanctioning body of ultimate frisbee in college.
“We report scores to them and they keep track online of every college in the country that has a club team, which is anywhere between 500 and 700 registered per year,” Crupie said. “There’s not really divisions that you play in, you just play whatever teams go to each tournament.”
The ultimate frisbee season goes from the beginning of January to the end of May. This fall, Disconnected will go to two tournaments, “warmup tournaments”, to get back in the hang of the season. When spring rolls around, the team will compete in anywhere from eight to 10 tournaments throughout the semester.
For the rankings of USA Ultimate, teams are broken up into two separate divisions, Division I or Division III. Disconnected plays in the Division III because GCSU has under 7,500 students enrolled. At the end of the year, championships are held for Division I and Division III series.
To stay competitive, Disconnected takes their practice schedule seriously. From the very first week of school to the last week of school they practice three days a week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 p.m.-9 p.m. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the team does activities such drills, running and conditioning. On Wednesdays, practice is purely pickup and playing scrimmages.
As far as recruiting, intramurals are a great way for helping Disconnected grow. The team can recruit members just by seeing other students playing and by other students seeing them play. Word of mouth is also big help to increase the team’s members.
“We’re out on front campus throwing a lot and people will stop, talk to us and ask us about it,” Crupie said. “A lot of times people know about the college club ultimate and if they come here they’ll seek us out.”
For female college students that like to throw a disc, GCSU also has a female ulitmate frisbee team called Links Rufus (the scientific name of a Bobcat).
For students that enjoy getting in the water, Swimcats is the co-ed club swimming team of GCSU that like, Disconnected, runs all year long.
Made up of about 12-15 members, the Swimcats practice at the Central State Hospital swimming pool. Every weekday except Friday, the Swimcats have practice a 5 a.m. and have a second practice on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and 7 p.m. and on Wednesdays their second practice is at 6 p.m.
“We do about three meets each semester and its been different every year because its by invitation. So schools we’ve meet at other swim meets will invite us to theirs,” junior Biology major Matthew Boyle said. “It’s like a self-organized club league. Georgia Tech is the biggest influence on organizing the southeast because they have a website that has all the meets, an index and each team has a page.”
Rather than having a coach, the Swimcats ares composed of an executive board made up of a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and a logistical support member. The Swimcats are always looking for new people to join the swim team and is optimistic that the new Wellness Center will help the team grow so that they will no longer have to travel to central state to practice.
“Swimcats is a great learning experience. We’ve helped before people who didn’t know a lot about swimming learn how to swim well,” senior member Andrea Sisson said.
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