Winthrop offers unique competitve sports clubs

By Chris McFadden
mcfaddenc@thejohnsonian.com

Winthrop’s 2010 Family Day gave students and their parents a chance to explore the entire campus, including the Winthrop Golf Course where disc golf is played. The Gold Course will be the site of the 2010 United States Disc Golf Championship on Oct. 4-6. Photo courtesy of Winthrop University Relations department.Lacrosse, fencing, paint ball and taekwondo are just a few of the club sports offered through Winthrop University’s Office of Recreational Services.

Club sports are a step up from intramurals and allow students to participate in sports that may not be offered at Winthrop, and are a little more competitive than intramurals.

“For the most part, club sports teams can be considered one step below a varsity team, and intramural sports tend to be more recreational,” Neil Ostlund, program director for intramural and club sports, said.

With club sports students are for the most part, in charge of the club.

 This is different from intramurals where the Office of Recreational Services is responsible for the operation.

“Club sports rely heavily on the support of the students who are members because the clubs are student organizations,” Ostlund said.

Members of club sports compete against other university sports clubs instead of their fellow peers, as with intramurals.

“Club sports tend to be more competitive than intramural sports and usually require more skill and technique with certain activites,” he said.

Club sports provide other aspects that intramurals may not.

“They can give you more leadership opportunities through executive officer positions such as being the president or vice-president of a club,” Ostlund said.

Still, while there are differences between intramurals and club sports, the goal of both is the same.

“We hope that students learn the same skills from both areas and have fun doing so. There are many skills you can learn from both,” Ostlund said.

According to the recreational services Wesite, there are 12 active clubs at Winthrop.

 Also, though, there are almost as many inactive clubs, such as skydiving , racquetball and rugby, that are waiting for interested students to jump-start them.

“Non-active clubs are clubs that lost student interest and leadership,” Ostlund said.

 “To activate the club, students would need to go through the process of starting and registering again.”

In addition to competing against other schools, the clubs at Winthrop have a friendly competition among themselves.

“Clubs are given points for all events that they participate in, meeting all of the program’s requirements and attending all meetings and trainings,” Ostlund said.

“All the points are added up at the end of the year and the club with the most points is named outstanding club,” he said.

 Also, they have their names engraved on the Champion’s Cup, which is located in the West Center.”

Club sports give students who may have had a dream to play sports on the collegiate level a way to live that fantasy.