Last week, my friend told me, “I’m not even sure if I like hockey or if I just like the people.” Hockey, one of 15 club sports at Macalester, is a cornerstone of the campus community. The attendance that other schools see at football games, Mac sees at hockey.
When I came to Macalester, I had never picked up a hockey stick or watched a game. Excited by the prospect of playing new sports and being involved on campus, I signed up for hockey’s email list (along with everything else) and eventually found myself at the first practice: 10 pm, sitting in super smelly gear, in a locker room where I didn’t know anyone.
Through playing hockey, I fell in love with not only the sport but also with Macalester. It was the first real home I found on campus and the first time I felt connected to the community. For our only home game of the season, my friend and future co-captain (and roommate) Marta and I plastered hundreds of posters around campus. Hundreds of people showed up. That game and season started a trend of what my next four years would be: all in on club sports.
Club sports found its way into every part of my life at Macalester. I played hockey all four years, briefly rowed with the crew team, played lacrosse, occasionally showed up at tennis, joined the ultimate frisbee team my senior year, and, in my junior year, started the women’s club soccer team. Club sports are an opportunity to try new sports. For me and many others, the opportunity likely would not have happened without club sports at Mac. Skill and cost would have been prohibitive factors but thanks to club sports everyone at Mac has the chance to try, and likely fall in love with, a new sport.
Club sports’ success is on the field: the Pursesnatchers ultimate team reached nationals last year and the men’s soccer White Squirrels joined a D-I league, to name a few examples. It’s also in the community of each team that the captains create. Captains do so much more than run a practice. They welcome brand-new players to their sport, teach them how to play, organize logistics, create and design merch, fundraise, advertise and, most importantly, create a sense of belonging. Captains have encouraged over 450 participants in club sports. Club sports are student-initiated and student-led. Everything that happens throughout the year from home games with bag pipes to team dinners is because of the work of the captains. It’s our effort that makes people want to participate.
There has to be something special about a team to keep players committed enough to practice at 6:30 am or 10 pm, or to drive eight hours in the van to play frisbee all weekend. In the early mornings and very late nights, during Culver’s visits and drives in the club sports van with the music at full blast, other students and I have found new sports or fallen in love with old ones again.
Club sports are a mix of students from across the student body. The program provides a recreational outlet that allows students to work together on something completely outside of academics. Teams also contribute to the overall campus culture; hockey games have become a tradition on weekends in the winter, and the FLAT pants are a sought-after piece of swag. On personal levels, the relationships built on teams change students’ perceptions of Macalester. When people find belonging and success in a club sport, they can find success in their college experience elsewhere.
Not all of these communities existed when I first arrived at Mac. My most meaningful club sports experience, and the one I am most proud of shaping, is starting the women’s club soccer team. Our team has given space for people to try soccer for the first time, to fall in love with the game again, and to connect on and off the field. Playing with people who became my friends, working on a team for someone besides yourself, is how I found belonging at Mac.
At the end of my first year, a senior gave me the paper plate award “Mac’s first marketing major.” I didn’t realize when I put up posters for a hockey game that club sports would end up becoming one of the biggest parts of my college experience, nor that I would be a part of a group of leaders who shape the campus culture. I’m so profoundly grateful to club sports for the incredible friendships and memories it’s given me, for the new sports I’ve fallen in love with and, most of all, for making me love Macalester.
