Volleyball team receives official club sport status

By Natasha Lindstrom

After three years of fighting to make its status legitimate, the women's club volleyball team has secured a spot as a university club sport.

The team's inclusion as the last official club sport by Campus Recreation was largely based on new information brought to light by the women's club volleyball players on the educational amendment Title IX.

"Basically it came down to, well, if you don't have the resources and the space, you need to make sure at least you're offering the same resources for girls' and guys' teams," said Chandra Shih, next year's women's club volleyball co-president.

In what women's club volleyball co-president Chelsea Reilley called a "desperate last effort," she and some of the players looked up information about Title IX online, checked out the Department of Education's Web site and reported their findings to Campus Recreation Director Janice DeMonsi and Recreation Assistant Erin Patchett.

"It was actually really interesting to find that Title IX really does apply to everything, from NCAA to club to intramurals," said Reilley. "And I think just the mention of it kind of got them to thinking."

Until that point, DeMonsi and her department had not thought that Title IX applied to club or intramural sports. Unlike the Athletic Department, Campus Recreation is not required to report the number of male and female athletes to the Department of Education's Office of Compliance.

"Most people who tend to think about Title IX only think about varsity sports," DeMonsi said.

The Title IX information came from a Congressional Research Service report, which explains that through Title IX's Code of Regulations, no one can be excluded from participation "in any interscholastic, intercollegiate, club or intramural athletics."

DeMonsi sent out an e-mail to the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association to see the club sports breakdowns at other schools, only to find that "more than 50 percent of them had more male sports than female," DeMonsi said.

"It's apparently the case that many universities feel that it doesn't apply to club sports and recreation," said Athletic Director Dan Coonan, who had also met with the players.

DeMonsi also met with university legal counsel John Ottoboni, who told her there have been no case laws dealing with Title IX and club sports, according to DeMonsi.

"We don't know how the courts would rule, but we knew we weren't being equitable," said DeMonsi.

Recreation is now setting a cap at 19 club sports, including five men's sports, five women's sports and nine open sports.

In comparison, Saint Mary's College, Loyola Marymount University and University of San Francisco all have no more than 10 club sports.

"Because now there are 19 club sports, there's no additional funding, no additional spaces," DeMonsi said.

The cap means that men's club baseball and men's club soccer, both potential teams that had been pushing for spots this year, will not be able to apply for the 2007-2008 school year.

Because women's club volleyball is a duplicate sport, Recreation will also have to take some extra measures.

"The issue with duplicate sports is that there's going to be a lot of financial aid checks that need to happen," DeMonsi said.

If any women's club volleyball player is found to have received money for athletic ability, whether it's $1 or $40,000, it can potentially take away one or two full $45,000 scholarships from the NCAA varsity volleyball team, said Jeff Mitchell, director of compliance and student services.

To ensure there are no financial aid violations, the women's club volleyball team will now be required to list all financial aid awards and turn them in to Recreation. DeMonsi will then work with Mitchell to verify that all disclosed aid is accurate.

This past year the team was allowed to play in the Northern California Collegiate Volleyball League, but had to call themselves the South Bay Broncos.

"I let them play in the league because I think it's just kind of ridiculous that they were a top five program nationally, and there are hundreds of programs out there," said NCCVL Commissioner Dan Labar, who estimates that over 95 percent of universities have duplicate NCAA and club women's volleyball teams.

The team went into the season ranked No. 5 in the nation and came out undefeated in their league, 22-0.

Outgoing women's club volleyball president Linda Chen said she is happy for the recognition but disappointed it didn't come sooner.

"It's definitely bittersweet because it happened at the end of my tenure," Chen said. "But it's a huge triumph."

Contact Natasha Lindstrom at (408) 554-4546 or nlindstrom@scu.edu.