Club Sports:
Not Your Father's Team The image of club sports, once known mostly for friendly softball
games on fields just off campus, has been sent to the penalty box
By Bethany Bradsher
Photos by Kyle Fisher Today’s club sport of choice at ECU is ice hockey, which created a minor Pirate sensation during its first season. Hundreds of fans turned out for its games at Greenville’s Bladez on Ice, including a 4-2 drubbing of the UNC Chapel Hill team.
Who plays club sports? People like Brent Falcon, who has been lacing up his skates and taping his hockey stick since he was a boy. Falcon thought his days of hitting the puck were over when he came to ECU, which does not have an ice hockey rink.
But after Falcon’s hockeyless freshman year (“I just hated it,” he said), a local couple decided to turn the Greenville roller skating venue into an ice rink. Falcon saw an opportunity and started looking for other enthusiasts on campus, mainly among students from northern climates.
“These are all guys who have played hockey since they were young kids,” said Falcon, now the president of the ECU club hockey team. “We were fortunate that we get to play the sport we love a little bit longer.”
There’s a team for practically every other interest. Matt Holley came to ECU from Jacksonville with a surfer’s craving for the waves. Feeling a bit landlocked, Holley connected with a few other surfers at ECU and then called the Recreational Services department. Club sports director Gray Hodges had him fill out some paperwork and, ensured that he had at least two other surfers to serve as club officers, the first ECU Surf Club since the ’80s was official.
“It’s been a chance to meet new people and actually experience how many people like to surf,” said Holley, whose club includes 12 men and two women. “There are a lot of people here who come from coastal areas.”
Club sports started at ECU in 1972 with the organization of the Goju Shorin Karate Club, and Hodges took over as the director of the program in 1994. Since his arrival, the number of club sports has increased from 18 to 30, with student interest serving as the major catalyst for the birth of new clubs.
“Students usually come in, and it depends on how industrious they are,” Hodges said. “They usually start as quickly as a month, and sometimes it takes the whole semester to start. And then usually after about two years you know if it’s going to be successful.”
The surfing club has participated in only one competition, last fall at Wrightsville Beach, but the group tries to get together whenever they can for weekend trips to the beach. No two club sports are exactly alike in their competition or practice schedules or in their travel habits, Hodges said. Most play their sports against other club teams from universities throughout the region, and some compete against non-Division I programs like Pitt Community College or North Carolina Wesleyan.
The 17 members of the Men’s Frisbee Club travel to tournaments as far away as Florida, Georgia and Maryland. Matt Robinson, the president of the Frisbee Club, was a high school soccer player who came to college with a lingering desire for practice and competition.
“One of my friends talked me into coming out for this, and now I’m in my fifth year,” said Robinson, whose team practices twice a week. “The more serious athletes on the team are the ones that did play sports in high school. It’s an easy transition for us.”
Most of the club athletes at ECU are former high school athletes like Robinson or even students who started out playing on a varsity team and had to stop for some reason. Hodges has found that the coaches of ECU’s varsity sports consider it an advantage to have a club level of the same sport. Club sports give students who don’t make the varsity team a place to play the sport they love and it provides a ready recruiting pool for walk-on talent.
Wayne Cox, a Greenville doctor and former competitive hockey player who is serving as the coach of the ECU club team, said that the team has given Pirate sports fans another opportunity to back a winner. And while the majority of club sports will never attract the type of following that hockey has, they can remind the ECU faithful that gifted athletes of all stripes are putting on the purple and gold every weekend, some in sports that even the most avid ESPN viewer doesn’t understand.
“It doesn’t take much time, it’s fairly cheap, we’re just out here having fun,” said Corey Fleitz, one of the officers of the club hockey team. “Half of us didn’t think we’d play anymore; we thought our career was done four years ago. Now we’re back, and
it’s awesome.”
