Sailing club catches a breeze toward success

By Kathleen Grohman

From yoga to Cellar to Facebook, every student has a different method to deal with stress. Sophomore Marianne Wallis has found that there is something very calming for her about sailing. "I love being outdoors," she said. "Being on the water gives me this really great feeling, and most places you can sail are really beautiful."

The sailing club has come a long way in the past two years, and it is now a rising club sports star.

The sailing club competes in the Intercollegiate Sailing Association, which includes other club and varsity teams.

Club President Wallis, a biology and environmental science major, has been sailing since she went to sailing camp as a child.

The sailing club faculty advisor, English professor John Farnsworth, said that he is the sailors' number one cheerleader. He has been very impressed with the progress they have made in the last year.

"They were somewhat recently 18th out of 18 universities, and now they are in the top four to eight," he said.

Santa Clara is in the North Pacific Coast division of the league. The top five teams from the division go to a regional competition against the Southern division, and then the top two teams from regionals go to nationals. This year the Santa Clara sailors have already qualified for regionals.

They also won the Best New Club Sport award from Santa Clara. Wallis attributes the vast improvement to greater involvement and commitment on the team.

"Our team is finally establishing some depth," she said.

Wallis said the sailing club's ultimate goal is to become a varsity sport, but recognizes that this probably won't happen during her time at Santa Clara. One of the first steps would be getting a coach.

"If we had a coach, we would definitely have a crack at nationals," she said.

According to Farnsworth, even schools with well-funded programs are noticing Santa Clara's club.

"They are really making their mark," he said. "In a year or two, they're really going to be a force to contend with."

Farnsworth said that when he first started working with the team, they only had one old, beat-up boat. But thanks to over $13,000 worth of boat supplies donated by alumni, the sailing club is beginning to gather the equipment necessary to facilitate their improvement.

Wallis said that she believes the sailing team can bring money and attention to Santa Clara just like any of the varsity sports.

"There are a lot of junior sailors out there who are looking for exactly what Santa Clara is in a college sailing program. They are hard-working kids who don't want to go to varsity schools because they want to put school first," she said.

The members of the sailing club have a lot of fun as well.

"We have really hysterical team dynamics," Wallis said.

She described how they always rush, thinking they are going to be late for regattas, but they always end up on time. For regattas, the club travels to places like Monterrey and Santa Cruz, and to places a little farther away like San Diego and even Hawaii.

Both Wallis and Farnsworth said that they wish the club had more support from the university.

"Other colleges respect them more than their own college does," Farnsworth said.

He attributes this partially to the lack of knowledge about the club.

But with a team comprised of mostly underclassmen who are committed to their program, the sailing club will likely continue to improve and grow.

Contact Kathleen Grohman at (408) 551-1918 or kgrohman@scu.edu.