A quiet ending to a loud semester

So its Friday at 2:51 and I am the only one in the office.  With finals completed the only real action on campus is at the book store where students are trying to get as much money back for their used books as possible in the anticipation of the holidays and vacation.  The bookstore and SGA partnered to promote book buy back and offer an award for the clubs with the most votes.  Subsequently, a penguin, figure skaters in their dresses and skates and the dance team decked out in school spirit are camped outside the main entrance trying to win your endorsement.

In the chasm that is the Davis Center next week will be even more eerie with all the Dining options being shut down.  But there is still some work to be done here and there as several groups are already planning their 2010 trips and preparing to continue their momentum from Fall 09.  To reflect on fall 09 it was really one of our most spectacular semesters to date.  While no new clubs were added three or on the docket to join the club sports family in early 2010.  Regardless of those clubs be recognized, participation continues to rise with in the neighborhood of 1,500 Agreement to participate forms being completed by Club Sports Athletes.

From an Administrative perspective many of our initiatives have been acclimating nicely.  Paperless forms through The Lynx are how we do business and our start of year workshops went over nicely.  The Club Sports Council is slowly building steam and is looking forward to planning two awesome events for the spring time, a Club Sports Activities Fest and an Awards Banquet.

On the playing surfaces, many of our teams had unparalleled success with four of our groups being recognized as a top ten team in the nation.  Those teams are Field Hockey, Men’s rugby, Sailing, and Cycling.  Not only those clubs accomplished great things as our winning ercentage is definitely on the high side and we have claimed many prizes and put on even more great performances, case in point being the well over 300 people who viewed many of our dance groups at the Orchesis Performance two weekends ago.

Its always nice to toot your own horn but an area that was great this year to was our conduct.  While there are always a few hitches on the behavior end, the occasions this semester where far and few between and dealt with very professionally by our student leaders.  Kudos to them for handling things with such maturity.

Alas, it is break time…what is it I will be doing you ask.  Well a picture is worth a thousand word and when actually words are also included in addition to Katy Perry….well I’ll let you draw your own conclusion…

Original is way better than the dance remix

Club Sports wants to wish everyone a great winter break and to have fun it whatever you are doing.  See you in January!

Club Sports Commercial

Check out the new video from UVM Club Sports

Trambopolines and more hockey pucks

While the semester beings nearing its end and Thanksgiving break’s start can now be counted in hours, Club Sports are still active and Leon’s World Tour soldiers on.  Last weekend I began my wanderings with a trip to the running club where I joined them for, oh lets see, about a minute of there run before exhaustion and creaky old man knees told me that was enough.  The Running club, one of our newer club sports, provides an avenue for a slew of runners from those beginning their running journey to those who are training for half and whole marathons.  On this beautiful, albeit chilly (it is Vermont afterall) a loyal band of about 15 runners took off on the route affectionately known as the Catamount.

As they drifted off down spear st. I headed back inside to the equally chilly Gutterson Arena where the Women’s Club Ice Hockey team, currently in Division 2, took on the well established Divison 1 UMASS- Amhert team.  The visiting team was decked out in all the same gear, very expensive jerseys and professional coaches however their skill level and intensity was only asmidgen higher than that of our beloved Cats who battled them to very close losses over the weekend.

The contrast in the Women’s game was particularly interesting because the following day I made it to the Men’s game where they hosted Sacred Heart.  Sacred Heart’s club is a relative upstart compared to our Men’s ICe Hockey program and their skill level also was a few years behind as our men posted a convincing win.  It is fascinating to observe these differences as club Sports start to become entrenched in the national Lexicon of Higher Education.  As more and more students are seeking the avenues to play sports more and more programs pop up across the country.  Our “well established” Men’s club Ice Hockey program was created this decade and leagues and associations are popping up around the country to accomodate and effectively manage this recent boom!

Getting off the soapbox, I then went and got on the trampoline!  I visited the Gymnastics club in their home a couple miles off campus, an awesome facility that the club has exclusive rights to on Sunday nights.  I picked a fun day to show up as the girl’s prepared for their upcoming meet this weekend at Penn State.  To do so, they were holding a mock competition so I got to see the full performance and I must say we are a talented bunch.  Our more experienced gymnasts performed wonderfully but what was also super cool was the many less expereinced gymnasts who have recently picked up the sport because of our club and have learned more than enough skills at this point to perform some great moves!

As the women performed several of the male gymnasts were hanging out cheering the women on and…..playing (well technically speaking practicing) on the trampolines and foam pits!  This was very exciting and as you can imagine I could not resist the temptation to try these out.  They lived up to their hype and while I did not learn any new tricks the guys were glad to show me a couple they had come up with including the pat your head, rub your belly, front flip.

The Gymnastics club is coached by two awesome people.  The first is current undergraduate student but super experienced gymnast Kayla Rounds, whose expert spotting and tips keeps the club improving and safe.  The other is Gary Bruening, the club’s adviser whose involvement with the club goes back to its Varsity days just a few years back.  This spring, the club travels to Texas for NAIGC Nationals.

All for one, and one for all.

One of our initiatives over the past couple of semesters has been to establish a Club Sports Council.  As we near 50 organizations and now encompass nearly 15% of students on campus we are large entity, but have a very small voice.  Additionally, many of our clubs face the same challenges year and and year out.

In response to this we have created our Council with the mission of empowering Club Sports with a unified voice, creating initiatives that address our issues, and providing a network for our clubs to access.

Admittedly, this is really in the beginning phases of its development but it has been nice to see our leaders already starting to think more about their situations and place in the UVM community and hopefully sometime next year I will be able to post a blog entry about all of our tremendous successes.

At the heart of our clubs is the concept of student driven initiatives and leadership.  Hopefully this council will emerge as a prime example of that.

So a cool video, not in the slightest bit related, but go Dr. Teeth…..

Youtube channel updated

Check out the new videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/UVMClubSports

From the streets to a racquetball court near you

Last night I visited one of our newest clubs, the racquetball club, who get together a couple evenings a week to hit the big blue (or green) ball.  Now for those of you who did not know I am quite the accomplished handball player of the New York Variety.  Games between myself and arch rival, Cristian Rolando Allegre Ortega, are still the stuff of legends on the concrete courts of Long Beach High School and the Monroe Courts.  While Cris is forgetful in his old age, and might tell you otherwise, my adeptness at getting rollers and placing the ball in a manner that to hit it back meant cutting your head on a rusty fence was no match for his cut shot and willingness to dive on the cement.  Street games in general have dominated the NYC landscape with handball being so popular that every town in metro area has park space dedicated to it.  Check out this documentary trailer from some of NYCs most famous on street games:

Racquetball is much like handball except with four walls, a cieling, and of course racquets.  Its simplicity at heart – you only need a aracquet and a ball – make it the closest thing to a street game for college students across the country.  Current Racquetball President, and former Student Government Association President, Jay Taylor’s passion for the sport sprung from his participation in the PE class taught by the legendary and always prepared with lollipops Paul Reinhart.  Jay, seeking an opportunity to improve and find games started the club which has two main compnenents – a recreational side to set up games between students and learn the sport; and a competitve squad where UVM’s best ballers represent the Catamounts in the Eastern Collegiate Racquetball Association.

Jay and I battled yesterday for three games that pitted my passing shots against his aggresive and very quick play.  The games were pretty intense and eneded up a draw as Jay had to hurry to one of his other campus engagements.  A racquetball court may not seem like much, but amidst the all the chaos, you work up an excellent physical and mental sweat!  A perfect reprieve from the daily grind at UVM.

The club next travels to New Jersey for their second competition of the year and of course will be on the courts leanring and honing their game weeknights in the PFG complex.

Fortunately this clip below did not happen to either of us but something about it just makes you smile:

 

Flying around on a swiffer

If there is one things that UVM students posess, besides style of course, is imagination and creativity.  Quiditch is a prime example of that and I took turns flying around on a swiffer this past weekend along with the prospective UVM Quidditch team who have already participated in International competition that being last months World Cup of Quidditch which took place at nearby Middlebury college.

What is Quidditch you ask?  Well, frankly there is no good explanation but it is truly a chaotic event with basically 3 sports rolled into one.  Those sports are Team handball, with several team members trying to toss a volleyball through three hoops;  Dodgeball, with a couple of team members playing defence by throwing dodgeballs at the opposing team; and some rugby because what fun is a sport without tackling.

Being new to the sport, and a bit of a slob, I had no broom so I borrowed a metal swiffer from one of the team members.  I am pretty poor runner and apparently an even worse flyer as keeping the swiffer between my legs was more than challenging…and perhaps even a little painful.  I did have one glorious moment where I took the quaffle (the volleyball) end to end narrowly avoiding a bludger (the dodgeball) with a quick little spin jump, and darted toward the net where I was tackled to the ground.  Miraculously, I got the shot toward the hoop where it sailed on target…and then it got blocked!

Oh well, the 20 students present on Redstone Green this past weekend were a testament to the ingenuity of UVM students and further proof that organized chaos is just flat out fun!

As the sport grows as the Harry Potter generation fully matriculates, the International Quidditch Association with the afformentioned Middlebury at its center, is gaining teams from all over North America.  Check it out on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=2220478706&ref=nf

or the official website:  http://collegequidditch.com/

Coming up on the docket:  UVM’s Freestyle Ski team vs. The Snowboard team in an ‘epic’ dodgeball game.  Rumor is winning team gets dibs on first tracks.

Because its getting cold out and this is just hilarious….”Clark the Hockey Goalie”

The best and funniest way to waste the next 6 minutes and 6 seconds of your life:

one, two, three the monkey’s got a hockey stick….

Last Thursday I had the pleasure to visit the UVM Men’s Club Hockey team who had a rare on campus practice.  UVM is a great school with many resources and facilities but the inevitability of being a good size school is there is a large demand for things like books, class registration, and of course using facilities like the rink.  Thankfully, Burlington is a vibrant community with tons of places not too far from campus to meet Club Sports needs and of course those of greater Burlington residents.

On this night, though, I got to skate at the Gut and once again work with the team’s goaltenders.  I was relatively nice to them but they were hard workers and I like forward to pushing them again at some time in the future.  I also got to jump into a little three on three where puck possesion with my linemates, ala the Detroit Red Wings, proved to be a great strategy!  Undoubtedly, this practice led to my two goals (and two posts…one more bar and I would have won three bar) performance in adult league last night.

Two thing the club hockey team provides for its players is a great balance and a lot of camaraderie.  It was apparent from the moment I stepped on the ice that everyone got along really well and they were as excited to be spending time with each other as they were to be playing hockey, a point that was emphasized when in the locker room.  Now back to that whole balance thing, this is one of the toughest things for college students with academics, work, and all kinds of other temptations and new experiences.  While the hockey club does a fair bit of traveling they are also very conscious of those other things, especially academics and this is evident as the team only on rare occasions has students in jeoparady of academic probation and has many students who have received accolades for their academic (and other extra-curricular) success.

So why the monkey reference in the title?  Well, for two reasons:

1.  I am very disheartened that the Evil Monkey in family guy is no longer evil, he was my favorite character!

2.  There are many great hockey songs out there, such as “the good ole hockey game” and “I wanna ride the zamboni” but my favorite is the one below courtesy of the Zambonis, a touring band whose wardrobe and every song, is hockey!  The song was also, the theme song for a show called “The Loop” which before cancellation, I thought was hilarious.  Clearly I have odd taste, because just like “The Loop” most shows I think are awesome go the same root, quickly canceled.

A sword to the face

Continuing with the theme of getting hit in the face with blunt objects, I took another leap into the dangerous world that are UVM Club Sports.  It all started out pretty ok with a pre-club sports visit to the Tennis Courts.  Expecting a nice round of hitting around with a buddy we were promplty challenged by a couple of Intermural tennis players.  Needing to defend our honor we accepted the challenge….we lost 6-0!

Thoroughly embarrassed, I wandered up the stairs to check out the Catamount Dance Crew as they learned a new routine and practiced some old ones.   As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I suppose these several videos at the link below speak volumes.

http://www.youtube.com/user/heartofaces28#p/a/u/2/K4Ht7vX0Ku0

Led by Senior “Ace”, the CDC has already had several performances this year and should draw their usual massive crowd for their showcase come spring time.  The music choices and the enthusiasm of the dancers definitely gets the adrenaline pumping.  It reminded me of the golory days in TO with my dance crew, The Rexdalians.  I miss you Ted Woodland, the Republic dance floor will never be the same!

Next was Salle Catamount, the UVM Fencing club who were preparing for the second tournament of the semester and their first large scale collegiate competition.  Under the guidance of Joanna Flynn, I learned some of the basic footwork associated with fencing.  I think I did quite well at this…and then they put the sword in my hand.  The feet and hands were not exactly on the same page but I did learn some parries and thrusts.  I have always wondered what it was like to get hit with a fencing sword and it kind of stings.  My teacher Joanna assured me she doesn’t really feel it anymore which leads me to the conclusion that she is way tougher than me.  I had the opportunity to try all three major weapons, the foil, epee, and Sabre.  My favorite was clearly the sabre; why you might ask?  Because you get to bop people on the head with it!  There is just something hilarious about watching someone get bopped on the head, see exhibit A, Wiley Coyote:

After my quick tutorial, I was ready to challenge Keegan in a sword fight.  We saluted, got set, and began our duel.  After a parry and a thrust I managed to score first.  This was mainly because Keegan, who is right handed, was using his left hand to fence.  We had two solid matches but Keegan managed to squeak at 5-4 victories on both occasions.  One thing Keegan mentioned a little while back though, is that Fencing is an art form.  This is very true and was evident watching the practice.  I fear that my performance was perhaps the abstract art version of the form.

Fencing is an ancient and very cool sport.  Check out this video from the 19th century