While varsity sports receive a majority of the press, Dartmouth has plenty of club sports, too, and this year has begun with three more club sports than the last. The athletics department has recognized the women's club lacrosse team, the Kung Fu club and the polocrosse team over the past year, as the club sports scene at Dartmouth continues to expand.
Polocrosse, the most unique of the three, is a sport that is just what it sounds like -- lacrosse played on horses. Teams of six are split into three-player sections that alternate playing rounds of up to eight minutes, called "chukkas." One game comprises six to eight chukkas.
Played primarily in such exotic locales as Australia, New Zealand and Zimbabwe, it was introduced to Dartmouth through equestrian coach Sally Batton, an expert who has written books on the sport. After being offered as a P.E. class at Dartmouth for years, polocrosse was recognized as a club sport last spring.
"A few friends and I took the P.E. class [last] fall as an alternative to varsity equestrian and club dressage," said Page Wagley '09, a polocrosse team captain and co-founder. "We wanted something different, something more like a traditional sport.
"Polocrosse offers that sense of competition that individual riding events can't offer."
The team has 10 members, with all five members of last year's team returning plus five new members currently learning the sport for P.E. credit. The team practices weekly on ponies in Etna, N.H., at Morton Farm, the location of Dartmouth's equestrian center.
Dartmouth's polocrosse team will travel down to Durham, N.C., to play in the Duke Invite this January, competing against teams from Duke, the University of North Carolina, the University of Texas and potentially Clemson. All of the schools have recently established their polocrosse teams, and many came to Dartmouth's Batton for advice.
The Polocrosse team is hoping to put on a demonstration on the Green sometime in the next month, possibly the Friday after Homecoming, although no date has been set yet.
While perhaps a bit more pedestrian in nature than its horse-ridden counterpart, club women's lacrosse has nonetheless quickly grown after its establishment in 2005, with official recognition coming last spring.
The team, which originally applied for club sport status in the spring of 2005, was denied its initial bid for recognition. As a result, the team was forced to play as an unrecognized team and call itself "the Big Lime," unable to use "Dartmouth" in its title.
Additionally, a lack of recognition meant the team had no leverage in reserving facilities, being forced to hold practices in odd locations like parking lots or sharing practice space with teams that could reserve space.
"The [recognition] process definitely took longer than I anticipated, but the athletic department was supportive," said Mary Beth Westerman '08, a co-captain and founder. "We did have trouble with field space [last year], since the athletic department couldn't schedule us any, but the other club teams really stepped up to help us out in terms of sharing practice space."
With recognition, the team has been able to officially represent Dartmouth and also gained the ability to reserve its own practice spaces, which has been a great benefit to the team. Additionally, the team receives funding from the athletic department and can raise funds through Dartmouth channels, such as selling concessions at sporting events.
While the club team has no formal ties to Dartmouth's varsity lacrosse team, the club lacrosse team does boast some former varsity players on its roster.
The team's primary season is in the spring, during which the team will practice several times a week. Competing in the Women's Lacrosse League, a conference in the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, the team is hoping to make a run at winning the league and making nationals this spring.
"Last year we missed making it to the league championship by one game," said Westerman, "but we feel we have a good shot at actually winning the league this year and going to nationals now that we have consistent practice times and a phenomenal group of new and returning players."
Unlike the women's team, the men's club lacrosse team has yet to be recognized by the College, and will be seeking approval in the spring.
In contrast to the team-oriented, competitive nature of the other two sports, Kung Fu is an art form practiced by a relatively small group of Dartmouth students. As with the club lacrosse team, recognition as a club sport has given the Kung Fu club greater capability to secure practice spaces as well as making it eligible for P.E. credit.
George Leung '07, the club's founder as well as teacher, sees official recognition as something of a formality and an aid to publicity for what has been a largely anonymous, independent club for the past three years. The club had twice before applied for recognition with the athletics department before finally receiving it at the end of last year.
"The chief benefits of official recognition for a club like Kung Fu are that we are now entitled to reserved practice times and spaces, plus we are on the official listing of P.E. classes, which helps to spread the word," said Leung. "You might think that funding from the school is nice, but since this is our first and possibly last year as an official club, we are on probationary status and thus do not receive any budget whatsoever. All the equipment that we've been using these past few years has all been paid for out of our own pockets.
"It's really been an independent club, and I can't say that being officially recognized is that big of a change. It's the same great students; now there are just more of them."
Leung came to Dartmouth having already received Kung Fu training, and established an unofficial club as a means to share his knowledge as well as to challenge popular misconception of the art form.
"When I started teaching here in 2003 I really had this vision of promoting Chinese martial arts and removing a lot of the misunderstandings people often get from things like popular movies and video games," said Leung.
"As such, I was a bit disappointed year after year of failure to get recognition since my club didn't get much publicity.
"[However,] I think this year is really going to be different," Leung continued. "My club is still small, but now we're about 20 strong, and we aren't wasting any time ... Kung Fu isn't just some P.E. course. I want to make it a part of people's lives; I want them to think about it and talk about it and dream about it, and most importantly to ask questions about it."
