The University of Connecticut Climbing Team is a Tier-II organization that competes in competitive climbing tournaments through USA Climbing, a national rock-climbing organization that hosts collegiate-level events. Last year, the team sent 10 out of 24 members to the Collegiate National Championships, the best the team has ever done. However, the team struggles from a lack of adequate funding, which stems from the team not being recognized as a Club Sport by UConn’s Recreation Center according to the team’s president.
The Recreation Center sponsors teams that are recognized as Club Sports at UConn and provides those teams with “advisement, facilities and resources to compete at the highest level against other colleges and universities,” according to the Recreation Center’s website. Currently, the center sponsors 36 teams, but the climbing team isn’t one of them. Because of this, the team relies exclusively on the $15,000 in funding that Tier-II organizations receive from the Undergraduate Student Government.
The president of the climbing team and a member from the team, who both asked to remain anonymous, spoke about the team and the issues that the lack of funding has caused them in an interview with the Daily Campus.
The team’s president talked about what the $15,000 of USG funding goes toward, saying it isn’t enough to cover all the team’s expenses.
“Climbing as a sport is kind of inherently expensive. The membership we pay for at the gym we train at is $80 per month per person, so if you just do the math out the majority of our money goes to memberships just to allow us to train,” the president said. “So, we’ve actually had to cut back on the amount of competitions we’ve attended because of this. [Two years ago] we would attend three competitions per semester. This year… we only have enough money to fund one bouldering competition in the fall, one ropes competition in the spring, and the national qualifiers.”
According to the president, the climbing team has reached out to the Recreation Center multiple times in the past few years to try to receive Club Sport status, but were told that the center doesn’t have the funding or space to accommodate another Club Sport.
“I do understand why the Rec is saying no… I know it’s not personal at all from them, I fully believe UConn has an increasingly lower and lower budget for Club Sports and it’s probably hard for them to choose if they’re to accept a new one on… I understand why it would be difficult, but I also think, with climbing being such an emerging sport, they need to consider newer sports, otherwise overtime it’s just going to become stagnant,” the president said.
Jay Frain, the interim executive director of the Rec Center, said that this was “the first [he is] hearing of any challenges for the Climbing Team,” and talked about the support that Club Sports receive.
“In general, the 35 teams we support receive an average of $3,500 in allocations annually which is a small percentage of most teams overall operating budgets (team dues, fundraising, etc., making up the bulk) and significantly smaller than the $15K available per team from USG as a Registered Student Organization,” Frain said.
Frain also said that while the Rec Center accepts applications for additional teams, there is a limited number of teams they can support.
“We do accept applications for teams via the UConn Club Sports website – Team Resources section, but we maintain the cap at 35 as resources are limited and we do not want to negatively impact the experience of the current teams,” Frain said. “Should availability open up, we would be open to evaluating a new team for admission.”
According to the president, members of the team have to pay out of pocket to attend most events.
“We have other optional competitions that we, as a team, really want everyone to go to, but we can’t force the people to go to it because they’re not funded by the team… then on top of that there’s the [National Championships]. If anyone makes nationals, there’s no money left over to go to that. Last year for example, 10 people flying out to Arizona, there was not a chance we were going to be able to fund that,” the president said. “We did various fundraising methods to scrap together enough money to allow us to go to nationals, and then we still had to pay a lot out of pocket.”
At the moment, the club practices three times a week. However, because they’re not a Club Sport they don’t have access to on-campus facilities and have to carpool to a climbing gym in Glastonbury, which is a minimum of 35 minutes away, according to the president.
The climbing team member talked about how the price of carpooling to practice and competitions, on top of fees for competitions, is beginning to add up.
“We don’t have the money to reimburse our members on gas. I’m one of the carpool drivers, I fill my gas up once a week, maybe sometimes even twice a week if we’re going to events far away,” the member said. “The money is adding up and I’m having to pay it out of pocket. I’m probably spending, like, $150 per month on gas a month just by itself.”
The president added onto this, saying, “Two years ago we used to do gas reimbursement because we had a little bit more money, but now it’s just essentially impossible. Also, you have to keep into account too that the membership prices have increased over the years, just with inflation and other factors. There’s a USA Climbing membership…which is the entry fee to have access to the collegiate circuit. We used to pay [for the membership fee], but now we have people pay out of pocket.”
The president said that being recognized as a club sport would help the team grow past where it is currently.
“Right now, from a team perspective… we’re at a stopping point…” the president said. “We would keep doing this year-end, year-out until we have the ability to grow… and with that Club Sport title we could have the funding. We could have the ability to get a coach, new facilities, transportation, and I think a good point is the comparison to other climbing teams around us. Why do 75% of teams we compete against have a coach and have their own transportation methods like a bus or a van? UConn is one of the stronger of those teams, if not the strongest of those teams in the northeast.”
According to the president, having access to on-campus facilities to practice would greatly benefit the team, allowing them to cut costs on membership fees and lower the necessity of carpooling. The president also mentioned how there is an out-of-use climbing wall in the Hugh S. Greer Field House which the climbing team would greatly benefit from using, saying “having access to facilities on campus seems like a no-brainer.”
The hiring of a coach is another benefit that the team would receive by being recognized as a Club Sport, according to the president.
“It completely changes the dynamic of our club if we had a coach… [Currently, the executive board] isn’t just running the club, but leading the training, and that’s so much work for us… having a role that is a coach that is not training, that is telling us what to do and helping us grow would completely elevate us,” the president added. “You look at all of the strong climbing teams in the northeast and nationwide… they have a full-on dedicated coach… and UConn should for sure be one of those names.””
The president stated that “there’s a lot of things that we just can’t do because of the money, that’s what it comes down to.”