Club Sports Demand Fair Treatment

One of the biggest assets to student life at Columbia is the wide variety of clubs and activities available to the students. The University advertises its 45 club sports in most of its literature, and gives these clubs an opportunity to operate a table at the Days on Campus Activities Fair. Yet, out of the public eye, the Athletic Department treats the clubs as an embarrassment and a bother.

Recently, the department instituted a number of new policies, the only purpose of which seemed to be to demean the clubs. Under the guise of creating a trademark for the “real” Columbia athletes, the club sports, many of which compete at a level comparable to the varsity sports, are not allowed to use the word “team” to describe themselves, nor can they compete as “lions,” or even create their own mascot (we would have been content to be Sea Lions!).

While these mandates are certainly insulting, they were just the beginning.

The Club Sports Office has a budget that is impressive, and we are lucky to be so well-funded and supported by the University. Or at least this is what I once thought.
The sailing team has gone though three coaches in as many years. Our most recent coach signed an employment agreement with the University in August, whereby he would be paid bi-weekly. In September, when members of the club went to file the paperwork for his first payment, they were told that there was a new system in place, and “recreational consultants,”—as club coaches are now called—could be paid a maximum of three times a year. Members of the team worked relentlessly towards getting our coach’s first payments as early as possible, but continually ran into red tape. Our coach quit on Feb. 1, 2008 after not receiving a single cent of payment. He had been coaching us since August 2007. As of Jan. 1, 2008, not one single Club Sports coach had been paid for work done during the fall.

Since fall 2004, when I joined, the sailing club has been discussing going varsity. Many of our primary rivals, including Hobart and William Smith and King’s Point, the US Merchant Marine Academy, are fully funded varsity programs, and Columbia is often the highest-ranked club team in the Middle Atlantic Collegiate District, which represents schools from Canada to Virginia. Sailors at Columbia practice three times a week, and the team competes every weekend from the beginning of September through mid-November, and again from early March through the end of school in May. Yet, the growth of this highly active and competitive club is continually stunted by the University. Coaches are too frustrated by the administration to stick around for long, alumni are too disappointed to continue donating, and students are constantly discouraged by levels of seemingly endless bureaucracy.

Brian Jines, director of intramural and club sports, claimed in December that we had done all we needed for our coach’s payment to go through. Within one afternoon following our coach’s resignation in February, Columbia was able to process his paycheck so that it could be sent the following Tuesday. The two things that made this happen are both pretty depressing. The first is that his resignation was unfortunately a great catalyst for getting things done. The second is that someone in the club got his father, an attorney, to call in and raise a fuss.

Without a doubt, being a member of the sailing team—and yes, we are a team in every sense of the word—has enhanced my already stellar Columbia education. In addition to the academics here, I’ve gained a ton of valuable “real life” experience that comes from managing a student-run team—writing a budget, managing people, etc. Without fail, my role as former captain of the team is discussed in depth at job interviews, much more so than my academic record, which is just glanced over. Yet in order to deal with Columbia, where I learned all of these excellent leadership skills, I have to forget everything I’ve learned and run to Mommy and Daddy. This is embarrassing and demeaning for us, and hopefully for the school as well.

I love this school, but now I am torn. How can I donate to a senior fund when Columbia has treated me so poorly? How can I ask sailing alumni to donate money when it’s unclear what hoops the team will have to jump through to get it? These grievances are not unique to the sailing team. I cannot speak for every club sport, but I know that many of them have dealt with these same problems, and I hope to draw attention to the poor treatment of all club sports. We have kept silent for too long, and this has enabled the University to treat us worse than ever. We receive apologies and assurances from the administrators, but nothing improves.

We’ve waited to bring this matter to light, and waiting has cost us a great deal. Not paying any employee is simply unacceptable. Club sports are a vital part of the Columbia community, and we refuse to take this kind of treatment anymore. If Columbia needs to be embarrassed publicly in order for anything to change, then sadly, it seems that’s what has to be don. Columbia, you won’t treat me fairly in private? Fine, let’s do this in public.

The author is a senior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science majoring in computer science. She is a member of the Columbia University Sailing Club.