A call to action for Associated Students

By Editorial

It's time for AS to take a stand.

Our student leaders have been ignored, and they need to do something about it.

Last Thursday, AS held a club sports forum where representatives of the Athletic Department and Recreation told AS that duplicate club sports could not happen at Santa Clara. There was no funding. There was no space. There was no way.

But what wasn't said at the forum was how Athletics ignored the original AS proposal that could have given proper resources to club sports, allowing our school to field its nationally ranked women's club volleyball team alongside its NCAA volleyball squad.

AS created a task force last year to fix the problem of having club sports under both Athletics and AS. The final proposal called for club sports to be under Athletics, with a $40,000 budget and a full-time director.

Athletics wouldn't buy it.

The final decision gave club sports half of what AS thought was necessary: $20,000 and a part-time director, ignoring the original proposal.

What's worse is that the director isn't even included in the Athletics budget -- her position was funded by the Center for Student Leadership.

Clearly, the Athletic Department wants nothing to do with club sports. Club sports aren't going to generate any revenue and don't bring the same kind of prestige to the university that NCAA sports do. In fact, one of Athletics' reasons for not allowing duplicate club sports is that the public might confuse the two.

But at the heart of the decision to forbid duplicate club sports is that Athletics claims it doesn't have the resources to check "compliance" of the club sports teams. If a duplicate club sport athlete received financial aid for athletics, it could cause the NCAA team to lose scholarships. It would not, however, cause the NCAA team to forfeit its entire season, as Director of Compliance Jeff Mitchell claimed at the forum.

Still, it's fair for Athletics to be concerned about compliance.

But it isn't fair that they refuse to allow duplicate teams a chance to show they are compliant, as many other schools successfully have duplicate club and NCAA teams without any problems.

And that's where AS needs to step in.

AS should call Athletics on its refusal to accommodate a group of students trying to play competitive sports. These students have nowhere else to go for help, and AS should be an advocate for them.

So far, AS has done a good job in providing them a forum to voice their problems to the university. But the answer that the club volleyball team -- as well as those trying to start up club soccer and club baseball -- received was that duplicate club sports simply aren't possible at Santa Clara. That's not good enough.

We commend AS Senate Chair Anton Zanotto for recognizing the problem and planning to institute a second task force. But if the university didn't listen to the first recommendations, why should they listen to the second?

We believe AS must take bolder action. AS should pass a resolution stating that the current situation of shutting out duplicate club sports is unacceptable, and the university needs to find a way to accommodate these students.

Even if AS doesn't have any power to force the university to act on the problem, this sort of a resolution would at least let our student government stand behind their students.

One problem that Athletics constantly brought forward was limited space in Malley and on Bellomy field. But clubs like the hockey team practice off campus, so why couldn't the volleyball team or the soccer team practice off campus, too?

The issue here is not space; it's compliance. And the athletes on the women's club volleyball team are being treated as second-class citizens by the Athletic Department, along with those trying to start men's soccer and baseball club teams. The Athletic Department's message is that if you aren't an NCAA athlete, you shouldn't play competitive sports.

AS shouldn't stand for it. We hope they speak up and tell Athletics they are not acting in the best interests of the student body and demand change.