California Lutheran Universityโs competitive sports clubs have been struggling financially due to ambiguity from Student Life and the Athletic Department.ย
According to Director of Athletics Howard Davis, the changes to the competitive clubs, such as the Cal Lutheran Ice Hockey team and the Cal Lutheran Knights Rugby team, happened this academic year. Clubs were required to gain support from Student Life, which was offered, but not for matters like reserving fields for practices or games.ย
โSo, recently, intramurals and club sports have been moved under athletics, and so we don’t have a long-standing tradition with it and we don’t have policies, per se,โ Davis said.ย
Davis said sports clubs are seen as an easier alternative to intercollegiate sports, even though rugby and hockey play against other universities competitively.ย
โIt’s really an athletic outlet for students who may not wish or have the โwhateverโ to compete in intercollegiate athletics, [it] allows them a venue to compete in a sport that they enjoy,โ Davis said.ย
A source who requested to be anonymous said hockey is part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, where some teams are clubs and others are run by an athletic department.ย
โ[There is] kind of this weird limbo between Student Life and the Athletic Department, and no one really wanted to take ownership for the team,โย the anonymous source said.ย
Peter Carlson, associate professor of religion and faculty advisor for the Knights Rugby team, said this is the first time they have had contact with someone from the Athletic Department to access facilities.
โAnd just having a voice in the Athletic Department is really wonderful, because we didn’t really have that before,โ Carlson said.ย
Carlson said rugby is reliant on what Student Life can provide clubs with funding, even though sports clubs need more funding than a typical club since sports need to cover equipment, insurance, etc.ย
โWe need the equipment. The reality is we need a new set of rugby balls, both practice and game balls every year. The reality is we’re probably gonna need an entirely new set of kits of the outfits that they wear, right? Because things happen in the rugby game,โ Carlson said.ย
According to Davis, there is no specific budget that has been given by Student Life to support sports clubs.
โSo, when club sports got brought to us, we got no budget supplement to it,โ Davis said. โObviously we have a really challenging time funding our intercollegiate sports, so there are no leftover funds to fund club sports.โย
Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Success Matt Ward said there is no institutional money to go around, especially when it comes to the question of the tradeoffs and to where those specific resources should go.ย
โClub sports fall under the operational jurisdiction of athletics, but their funding instrument is their student fees,โ Ward said.ย
Davis said official sports teams will always receive priority โbecause they need more funding, especially for everything they need.โย
According to Davis, there are no policies in place that accommodate competitive sports clubs.ย
โThere is no policy. I will say that we have an ethic of trying to provide field facility time and space to all clubs. Of course, the first priorities are intercollegiate athletic teams,โ Davis said.ย
Ward said fundraising and Student Life resources are the only two options for accessing funds for sports clubs.ย
โWe’re not swimming in trainers and extra time and bandwidth to just say, โOkay, we’re gonna prioritize it, now we can take on a whole additional team.โ Arguably, even with our existing number of student athletes, there is about 630, we need more trainers,โ Ward said.ย
Davis said athletic trainers are not a resource that sports clubs can use due to having a low number of trainers.ย
โThat’s just a resource issue that we can’t support, cause so many of the colleges that we compete against in our conference and outside of conference, they have five, six full-time trainers. We have three,โ Davis said.ย
The anonymous source said the hockey team is required to have a trainer in case of injuries, and they are not satisfied with the support they receive from Student Life and the Athletic Department.
โStudent Life isn’t allowing, or is not providing, any support whatsoever for a trainer and that’s including we have not received any even if like money or funds to provide and seek a trainer because our athletic department also is not supporting and refuses to allow there to be trainers,โ the anonymous source said. ย
Davis said Cal Lutheranโs departments on campus are stretched thin, money-wise, and the Athletic Department cannot afford to place money into something that is not a varsity sport.ย
โIt’s extremely expensive, extremely, I cannot stress that enough, extremely expensive to run a hockey team,โ the anonymous source said.ย
According to the anonymous source, the hockey team feels like there is not one main person they can talk to for help.ย
โWe have people on our board thatโs sole job is to run fundraisers or, you know, handle all that kind of thing. We are looking for donations from parents and sponsors, like, whatever we can get,โ the anonymous source said.ย
Carlson said he does not want the rugby team to have to enforce dues or any additional fees to the players because they need to pay a membership fee for USA Rugby.
โI don’t want anyone not to play rugby because they don’t have money for membership in USA Rugby, right? I have, in the past, personally paid for memberships and I make sure every year that the students know, โIf you cannot afford this, do not let that stop you,โโ Carlson said.ย
According to Ward, the Athletic Department is willing to help create fundraisers to give sports clubs an opportunity to properly donate funds.ย
โThe message that I would want to communicate is that I and the Athletic Department leadership, inclusive of Howard [Davis] and others, would be more than happy to work on creating solutions that would maybe empower fundraising efforts or support those things that would allow for the funding to come for these types of things,โ Ward said.ย
