A Guidebook to Organizing a Table Tennis Sport Club Team in College
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Alan Chu, Associate Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: A sport club is a group of students that organize voluntarily to further their common interest in an activity through participation and competition. While some institutions refer to them as “club sports,” and others call them “sport clubs,” for the purpose of this guidebook “sport clubs” will be used.The key to success of sport club programs is student leadership, interest, involvement, and participation. The clubs should be a learning experience for the members through their involvement in fundraising, public relations, organization, administration, budgeting, scheduling, and of course, the development of skills in a sport. They are formed through the recreational sports department of your school and span the sporting world from martial arts and fencing to soccer and, soon on your campus, table tennis!Your table tennis club will be formed, developed, governed, and administered by your student membership, along with the recreational department of your school. With this guidebook, you will be able to maximize all of these areas for your club.At this point, you may be wondering what the differences between a sport club and an intramural sport are. According to the official definitions of National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA):Intramural: Within the walls or boundaries of the institution.Extramural: Intramural teams from one school play intramural teams from other schools.Sport Clubs: Recognized student organization on campus that competes against other sport clubs, generally at a higher level of competitionIntramurals develop sport leagues for play on a single campus. These leagues are usually run over a short period of time (seasonally). For table tennis, this is often in the form of one-day tournament. Whereas, your table tennis club team can organize students with an interest in the sport and provide them with a year-round opportunity to play and practice together, compete against each other,compete together against other schools in collegiate competition, and socialize together. In addition, a club team has the ability to modify program offerings at any time based on student needs and interests, which offers students advantages over intramurals.Another question you may have at this point is the differences between a club team and a varsity team in college. Varsity teams are very structured, funded by the school’s athletic department, feature collegiate competition, hire coaches, recruit, and make competitive cuts... Forming a club team allows some of the benefits of varsity athletics, such as competition against other colleges, regular practices, year-round play, and travel opportunities. One main difference is club teams including table tennis are often coeducational, which increases the fun and social opportunities for team members. While varsity programs are often fully subsidized by the athletic department, sport clubs have to rely heavily on dues collection and the fundraising efforts of the team members. In short, a table tennis club falls somewhere on the spectrum between intramural and varsity athletics in both funding and skill levels. The beauty is that you and the members of your club team have the opportunity each and every day to create the program that is right for you and your campus!
A Guidebook to Organizing a Table Tennis Sport Club Team in College
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Created on 10/5/2023
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Language: English
- Date: 2017
- Keywords
- table tennis, college table tennis, sport club, college sports, college clubs