“Sport Clubs will not be approved/recognized if the University of Chicago provides varsity (and, in some cases, intramural) athletic opportunities in the same area of the proposed club activity.”—Office of Intramural, Recreation and Sport Clubs
I want a rational, legitimate defense of this policy. Not a speculative and unsubstantiated opinion. Not some superficial pontification about the “fairness” of the current code. It would be the height of ignorance to claim there isn’t a demand for serious athletics on this campus. If you’re interested in rigorous, above-intramural competition, but don’t have either the time or talent to devote to a varsity squad, and fail to receive sufficient funds from ORCSA/SG, well, you’re out of luck. It’s an effective, “Screw you.”
Concerning this rule: I call bullshit.
Consider this statement from Brian Bock, Director of the Office of Intramural, Recreation and Sport Clubs: “I understand there’s, you know, a need and a want, especially if people want to be competitive and travel—you know, money’s an issue for them,” said Bock, “but I also see the point where you have to draw the line somewhere. Now why that line was drawn in the sand, I couldn’t tell you.”
Wait—rewind. He acknowledged there’s “a need and a want.” Now consider the Office’s official philosophy: “Sport Clubs have been established to foster positive and healthy experiences through participation in recreational and competitive activities.”
I submit to you all: In what universe do soccer, tennis, baseball, and softball not “foster positive and healthy experience through participation in recreational and competitive activities”? If you answered, “Not this one”—bingo. If you didn’t: Grab Robert Maynard Hutchins’ hand, do some pushups, and, you know, maybe a few squats, and take a hike.
Not a metaphorical hike. A real one.
That’s not to claim there aren’t legitimate concerns with this issue; far from it. Bock fairly asserts: “We have a finite amount of space; we have a finite amount of money.” No argument here. And he’s right: We have to “draw the line” somewhere. But where do we draw that line, exactly?
First off, forgive me if I reject the notion that a “finite amount of space” justifies an exclusion of additional Sport Clubs. Not all activities require University facilities, and I contend that most people who frequent Ratner and Crown, like myself, would agree: There are certainly times where spaces are available. This “finite amount of space” comes across as little more than a poor excuse for an indefensible proposition.
But what about available funds? For background, according to Bock, the Sport Club Finance Committee averages “about $100,000 in funding from ORCSA/SG each year”—80 percent distributed via their Annual Allocations process, 20 percent via their Quarterly Allocations process.
This distribution of funds seems to be the critical issue of contention—the one perhaps most supportive of the current rule. But if you consider the current regulations, it’s one that can be dismissed with relative ease.
Consider the protocol for the allocation of annual funds:
–Organizational structure and fulfillment of responsibilities to the Department (and University)
–Leadership in recruitment and retention of new and existing members
–Organization in planning and development of club business
–Proper use of funds provided the previous fiscal year
–Financial commitment through generated revenue
–Longevity and stability
–Needs proportionate to demand
–Service to the University community (students, faculty, staff, etc.)
Note that not a single one of these conditions remotely justifies this discrimination against registered sports by the powers that be.
The tennis club, currently a “social club,” has “raised $5,500 for traveling through Zipcar, and has applied for a grant through the United States Tennis Association’s (USTA) Tennis on Campus program,” according to Alexander Sotiropoulos’ April 10 Maroon article, “Tennis club restructures, looks for funding.” Is that not “financial commitment through generated revenue”?
If “annual allocations are determined by” these factors, then what makes a potential tennis Sport Club or soccer Sport Club that has better organizational structure, leadership, planning, and fundraising than another Club—say, Aikido Kokikai or Bocce Ball or Kendo—less deserving of funding?
When Renato Amboss, a first-year in the College, tried out for and failed to make the varsity soccer team as a “preferred walk-on,” he gathered more than 20 friends and associates to form a soccer Sport Club. Becoming a Sport Club, rather than an RSO, would allow the club to receive more funding than would be offered by SG, allowing them to compete in more competitive tournaments. But his attempts were denied: Soccer is already a varsity sport. Amboss’ reaction?
“I would be perfectly fine with not making the team as long as I get the chance to play at a competitive level somewhere else,” Amboss said. “IM is great for people who just want to go out and have fun, and varsity is fantastic for great recruited athletes who are at a high level of play, but there is little hope of being satisfied if there are people like me who are considered not good enough for varsity but not satisfied with the challenges of IM.”
The fact of the matter is: When the tennis club, or that potential soccer club, better meets those eight conditions than current clubs, they deserve some of that funding. The other clubs necessarily deserve less. “Longevity and stability” is not enough to maintain a current organization’s funding; they have to continue to “foster positive and healthy experiences,” in line with the Sport Clubs philosophy.
That’s what your Office’s rules dictate. And to exclude a certain group because there are other, insufficient opportunities on campus is to commit a grave injustice against those students. It is to border on hypocrisy and contradict the mission of the Sport Clubs itself.
Surely Athletic Director Thomas Weingartner misses the mark and severely oversimplifies the wants and needs of students when he states, “You only kind of get one take at the apple…it’s either/or.” This is not an “either/or” situation. This is pure economics, and when there is a demand for a Sport Club, one that falls within the financial code outlined by the Office, they should get a chance to compete for funding. That is, of course, if you do care about “fairness.”
I agree: It’s time to “draw the proverbial line in the sand.” But if we’re going to do that, we better make it straight.
So come on: Give me a valid, substantive justification of the current system. One that makes sense. One that accommodates the wants and needs of our students and our community.
Or repeal this stupid rule.
This is one of the most unnecessarily harshly worded attacks the Maroon has published in recent memory. I see “grave injustice,” “hypocrisy,” “bullshit,” “poor excuse,” “indefensible proposition” and “discrimination” in these 1,000 words. Come on, it’s none of those. It’s a policy about club sports, don’t forget — one that favors a diversity of activities rather than to supply all skill levels (i.e. varsity, club AND intramural). But the writer, who accuses everyone else of oversimplifying, can’t see past his black-and-white view of the student body’s “wants and needs.”
The Maroon’s space would have been better spent producing some research for readers — examining a club sports’ costs and how much money existing clubs would lose with a policy change. How about getting opinions from clubs that currently get funding? Or substantiating his claim that others are not as well organized? (Keep in mind that the tennis article he this writer citied described dropouts as a problem, as it would be with any activity.) With a policy change, how many new clubs would be added and at what expense?
But I don’t think a reasonable take was the writer’s aim: You can tell by the quotes he got from the two administrators that he had his mind made up a priori and was just looking to elicit a defensive response for this slam piece. In the end, that tone and obvious bias may only damage his point.
Great job, Matt! This was an extremely well written, well researched article. You did exceptionally well on this. Kudos to you.
This is a tragically hyperbolic piece…literally it was barely readable after the first paragraph or two. Next time, I would suggest doing some proper research before you blast off. While you certainly could have written a legitimate article in defense of better funding for club sports at UChicago, you ended up writing one of the more embarrassing pieces I’ve read in the Maroon in years. You oversimplify the issue and end up writing a 1000+ word, poorly researched tirade.
Did you really use the phrase “grave injustice” in a piece about underfunding sports clubs? Poor kids…they don’t have the time or talent to participate in varsity athletics…but IMs just don’t cut it for them! Talk about a GRAVE INJUSTICE (that’s sarcasm). In what universe is a hyperbolic statement like that acceptable in a publication like the Maroon? Answer: Not this one! Given the Maroon’s continued decline in terms of its sports coverage I might have been naive to expect more, alas.
Sean and Andrew, you both greatly miss the point. Because activites that aren’t considered clubs have to go through annual allocations for RSO’s, they don’t receive as much funding.
YES, IT IS A GRACE INJUSTICE. I have some very good friends that are very active in the tennis club. Last year, they virtually destroyed everyone in IM but are not good enough for the team given that we have the best teams in the country. However, the lack of funding countinues to have an adverse effect on my peers. They are unable to compete at a much higher level. I think rather than you guys considering an outsider perspective, you should look at the problem at hand.
Also, Andrew you make a very rude claim that the Maroon is in a continued decline. I have written for the Maroon the past 2 years and cannot be happier about how the section looks. I think that you may just be defensive because you/your editing staff could not produce great articles.
One more thing…didn’t mean to criticize you/your editing staff. I apologize about this. At the same time, please keep the low blows to yourself.
Grave injustice* my bad
Alex, I think you’re misunderstanding my point here. I agree club sports, just like intramurals and varsity sports, are an important part of the College. They deserve support. No doubt there are more deserving clubs and there are plenty of worthy groups asking for funding. But we have to assume finite resources here, and that’s where the policy comes in. Whatever the actual intent, I cite what I see as a plausible effect — diversity of sports. Seems like a good thing to me. On the other side, it doesn’t address every student’s desired challenge.
Like any policy in any walk of life, it breaks down when looking at particular cases. But in order to judge what would be a better alternative, we need much better reporting from the Maroon. You can see some of the open questions in my comment above. You can answer for yourself what tradeoffs you would advocate — the author kind of suggests less martial arts/skill sports — so that tennis could be accommodated.
From a journalistic standpoint, here’s the problem: A columnist should make a point, but he or she should allow readers to make up their own minds. This column — on an intellectual level — doesn’t invite anyone to do that. And its extreme tone is more likely to produce charged feelings/comments like you see in the small sample here than to rally people around the cause.
Sean,
You impose arguments the author did not make. Did the author once claim that the tennis club, soccer club, etc. deserves funding based on virtue of its existence? Of course not. He argued it deserves the same competitive stakes. Poor research? My friend, no, that is what you and your staff delivered. (That’s ad hominem!—blah, blah, blah. It’s true, so move on.) Poor research? Did you read the entire article? Get a grip. Don’t project. Your “open questions” reflect not an open mind but a soporific removal from detail.
“The fact of the matter is: When the tennis club, or that potential soccer club, better meets those eight conditions than current clubs, they deserve some of that funding. The other clubs necessarily deserve less.” With all due or undue respect, Sean, the argument could not be clearer: Other clubs might receive zero funding from the SCFC. This seems fair: Those clubs’ activities would fall less under the jurisdiction of the SCFC. They did not meet demand; end of story. If those clubs market their niche well—indeed, perhaps not as “sport” but as “art”—SG can be a viable resource. (If you have an argument with this premise, go ahead. But don’t blaspheme a story with your own self-indulgent fantasies.)
The author wants open consideration for all sports. A “black-and-white view of the student body’s ‘wants and needs’”? Not in the slightest. Join Mr. Dallos and refurbish those critical reading skills.