About Club Sports

About 10 percent of Northwestern University students were registered for club sports in the 2001-2002 school year, based on club sports figures.

Peter Parcell, club sports director, said that 793 athletes were registered last year for 32 club sports.

Club sports encompass a large variety of different people and personalities, both on the whole and within each club. There are three basic types of club sports:

• Instructional
• Recreational
• Competitive

Different types of people participate. Some join a club to force themselves into regular exercise or to exercise while doing something fun and mentally stimulating. Others enjoy just playing certain sports, and a number of athletes love being able to compete regularly against other nearby clubs.

Some reasons to play club sports:

• Physical activity/exercise
• Learn a sport
• Play a sport that's not varsity
• Play a sport but not have to put in varsity dedication
• Sense of community

"When you get to a university, even at this size, it can be intimidating," Parcell said. "Playing sports, you can have a bond with people. Everyone’s kind of on the same page, and you can draw a lot of support from the team."

Some club sports may compete in league, regional or even national championships. The crew team competes against other schools’ varsity teams. Also, Tae Kwon Do, usually thought of as a recreational sport, has two to three meets per quarter.

“(Students) play it for the love of the game,” Parcell said. “They don’t play it for the glory, they don’t play it for the scholarships. The players on crew don’t wake up at four in the morning if they didn’t love it.”

Money

Club sports get minimal funding from the university. Members have to pay dues and fundraise. All 32 clubs this year had to share $38,650, Parcell said.

The university also provides van transportation, which Parcell said is about $28,000, but teams can only travel up to 300 miles with the vans.

“The university’s focus is on academics,” Parcell said. “Club sports are purely recreational.”

Organization

Each club is completely student-run, from hiring coaches or instructors, to scheduling games and practices, to raising money, to reserving hotels and vans on trips.

“It’s a great learning experience for the students to deal with all of the aspects of running what you might consider a small business,” Parcell said.

Participating in a club sport is more than just playing games. The club provides an opportunity to manage and learn skills outside of the classroom that will benefit the students after college.

“There’s huge benefits of learning how to manage other people, raising money, relegating duties, getting other people to do things they don’t want to do, “Parcell said. “A lot of that experience you can take to any job. Learning how to work with other people. If you were just a student, you wouldn’t learn that.”

Fundraisers

Complete links page