JOR 221 Project 20
This is becoming a bit of a habit, us meeting like this. But if you are reading this you really want to try out Wix. Go on then.
From Varsity to Club
By Emily Jacobs
In 2008 the University of Rhode Island Field Hockey Club program was founded after the Division 1 program at the University was cut. Three captains, Jessica Foley, Samantha Pincins and Jenna Oppel built the team from the ground up. Recruiting athletes, creating a budget, and joining the National Field Hockey League.
Since then, the team has continued to grow. Electing new captains and leadership each year. This past season the team finished with a 9-3-1 record. They were ranked 13th in the NFHL and in November, invited to the Fall Championship in Virginia Beach.
Current captain and vice president of the team Chelsea Duball, joined the team as a freshman the year after it was founded.
“I was being recruited when I was a senior in high school and that’s when the team was cut,” Duball said. “It was confusing and disappointing to lose a scholarship, but I knew I would still play.”
While Duball has never known what it is like to play at the varsity level, she has barely any complaints when it comes to the club program.
“I personally enjoy it,” Duball said. “It has the competitiveness of a varsity level sport, but at the same time we can do what we want with the sport. But the only thing is we don’t get as much founding and we have a lot of responsibility as both players and coaches, because we coach ourselves.”
The team has seen success since the program was cut. Year after year the team gets NFLH recognition. Thorr Bjorn is the varsity athletic director here at URI. Bjorn is in his 7th year at the school, and was part of the decision process when field hockey and three other sports were cut.
“We really spent a lot of time evaluating a number of things things,” Bjorn said on making the cuts. “Which is going to allow us to reach the budget impact number that we need to reach, while also ensuring our gender equity obligations.”
Two women’s programs as well as two men’s programs were cut. These decisions were based on location as well as availability of the sport.
“Field hockey and gymnastics were the two women’s sports to be cut,” Bjorn said. “The reason for field hockey is that we don’t have the proper playing surface. We were playing on grass, and there was no plan to install an artificial surface. So we were really at a disadvantage recruiting-wise.”
Bjorn mentioned that as time progresses he would love to see field hockey return to a varsity level sport. However, for now it looks as though field hockey will continue competing in the club division for the future years.