A fight for funds: Club sports teams left feeling shortchanged
Source: The Daily Utah Chronicle by Bubba Brown
It’s 2:30 a.m., and Colton McDonald struggles out of bed. He trudges to the window and peeks out of the blinds — pitch black. Still half asleep with no time to grab a full breakfast, he guzzles a gasoline-colored Red Bull before rushing out the door to his job at UPS.
He pauses, reminding himself why he does it.
After surviving six hours of work, he clocks out and speeds to campus. In the parking lot, he slouches in his seat and dozes for 15 minutes before the day’s class load bears down on him.
He pauses, again reminding himself why he does it.
Following school, McDonald slips home for a sweet respite — the two-hour power nap makes all the difference. But before he can slide into a dream, the alarm clock sounds again — time for hockey practice.
He laces his skates and glides onto the ice. This is why he does it.
The fine print of funding
For a year and a half, this has been McDonald’s existence — an endless string of graveyard shifts that inspires chaos and wreaks havoc on his life. He suffers through it to afford the $2,000 per season it costs to play for Utah’s hockey club. However, McDonald’s lifestyle is not unique on campus, where hundreds of club athletes endure a constant struggle to muster the hundreds or even thousands of dollars per season it costs to play their sports.
Former rugby club president Cameron Burd remembers living like that, too — scraping by for the $1,000 dues to play rugby. He has seen what McDonald has seen: players working 15-hour days in the summer just to make enough money to last through the school year.
“The major difficulty is just time, trying to find that money,” Burd said. “Whether you have to work another job or do fundraising, it adds more time to your day. With school and practice, that’s one of the biggest struggles.”
In an effort to alleviate some of the burden from their players, most sports clubs search for alternate sources of cash to supplement athlete dues, though the effectiveness of such enterprises varies.
Applying for funding through ASUU is perhaps the most common method clubs utilize, but this usually doesn’t solve the financial problems completely. Clubs can only receive a maximum of $5,000 through ASUU, and the majority qualify for only a portion of that.
Although ASUU allots roughly a quarter of its budget to club funding, its resources are made up entirely of student fees, creating finite limits on the amount of money it can give to clubs. For example, the racquetball team received around $500 this season. This only scratches the surface of its expenses, which typically cost each player $1,000.
“It’s kind of just blind faith that we’re going to get some type of funding,” said racquetball player and last year’s club president Richard Baggaley.
ASUU’s process to decide how much money to give individual clubs complicates matters. The number of clubs applying for money is a determining factor, but other criteria, such as the size of the club and how many people on campus and in the community benefit from it, play the biggest role, said ASUU financial adviser Rob Phillips.
If a sport receives funding from ASUU, the ways in which it can use the money is limited. Before being approved, a sport must outline how the money will be used in detail. If a club needs change after submitting the outline for approval, it must tender an entirely new proposal, which might or might not be approved by ASUU. Additionally, clubs’ requests must fit into narrowly defined categories, such as organizational apparel, equipment or advertising.
“The frustrating part for us is fitting all of our budgetary items into the ASUU categories,” said A.J. Boldan, president of the hockey club, which received nearly $4,000 from ASUU. The club’s annual expenses exceed $80,000.
ASUU’s method of financing ensures regulation and oversight, making sure many students and clubs benefit from the system, said Phillips.
Boldan said he understands and agrees with the reasons behind ASUU’s financing model but believes a few simple tweaks to the system would help, because some of the regulations and restrictions aren’t necessarily applicable to club sports.
“I would like to see ASUU really try to support sports clubs a little differently than other clubs,” Boldan said. “We’re not in need of $50 of advertisement or something like that.”
Other sports have found a bigger chunk of their needs met by ASUU’s funding. The baseball club, which didn’t apply for ASUU assistance in its first season last year, received approval for more than $3,900 for the upcoming season. The money will alleviate some of the strain on the club’s players, who paid roughly $700 last year between team dues and travel. Team president Ryan Petersen expects each player to pay about $500 this year in monthly installments, and he’s hopeful players will receive a reimbursement for a portion of that fee following the season. Qualifying for the money comes at a crucial time for the baseball team as it tries to expand its base and recruit good players, many of whom might not be able to pay higher dues, Petersen said.
“Not everyone has $500 to pull out of their wallet and pay up front,” Petersen said. “[Extra funding] makes it feasible for people.”
Applying for help through ASUU is only one option, and most clubs are forced to find more creative ways to pay the bills.
The women’s lacrosse club, for instance, nearly received the $5,000 max from ASUU, but club president Glen Shurtleff still encouraged players to raise funds and find sponsorships on their own to help offset the $1,000 it costs to play on the team.
The hockey club, on the other hand, uses its wide fan base to raise money. The club has sold about 600 season tickets this year and draws high attendance. Paying crowds upward of 2,000 have witnessed the club play against in-state foes such as Utah State and BYU, Boldan said.
For less popular sports, however, attempts at making money through a steady fanbase have been fruitless. Drumming up enough community interest to make money is futile for sports such as racquetball, Baggaley said
“Not a lot of people are looking to sponsor racquetball,” he said. “We did look into it. We also tried to do some fundraisers, but to be honest, it was quite difficult.”
The racquetball club is often strapped for cash, so much so that it occasionally has to turn away good players.
“We offer them the opportunity to go to nationals,” Baggaley said. “But we also say, ‘It’s going to cost this amount of money.’ If they can’t pay that, there’s really no way for us to pay for them. It’s hard enough for one person to pay for themselves.”
“It takes a lot of planning ahead,” he said. “For me, I know a year ahead of time that I’m planning on going to nationals. I set aside a fund to have enough money to do that.”
Making it work
Toward the end of December, McDonald lost his job at UPS. He had gotten the post through his mother’s boyfriend, who is a supervisor there. However, the two recently married, meaning McDonald could no longer work there because of nepotism issues. What at first seemed to McDonald like an unfortunate blow now seems like an unexpected benefit. It’s allowed him to take a slower pace and has shown him just how frantic his old life was, and the lives of other club athletes are.
Free from the nights in the dank UPS garage, McDonald feels whole again. Previously, he struggled to steal five minutes from his barely manageable life, and he now has time for his family and girlfriend. He eats better, too, ditching the Burger King drive-through for a more well-rounded diet.
Of course, he also has time to sleep, the all-important savior. Fifteen-minute catnaps sprawled out in the backseat of his car have given way to full nights of rest. The haggard face has been replaced by a fresh, reinvigorated countenance.
“I’m not so aggravated and agitated from the lack of sleep,” he said. “A couple of guys I worked with came to one of the games, and when I saw them afterwards they said, ‘You look like a different person. You look rejuvenated, healthy and awake.’ ”
Fortunately for McDonald, he paid most of his hockey dues for this season last year, and a student loan has made up for the rest and helped pay tuition. But he can’t live on that money forever. As just a sophomore, McDonald plans to play for the next two seasons and sees his previously tumultuous life returning in the not-so-distant future.
One last time, he pauses and reminds himself why, when it comes time to get another job and live that hectic life again, he will do it. Then he explains.
“I’ve always played,” McDonald said. “Hockey has just been a part of my life since I was 8 years old. I’ve taken one year off without playing, and I felt lost.”
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