At colleges across the world, sports teams offer invaluable opportunities for a student to feel unity and pride for their institution. This specific extra curricular activity attracts students who have a passion and desire to play a specific sport, and who consider the time and devotion towards practice and games of far more worth than other outlets. Students and players alike prepare for games, fan bases are huge, and the overall significance of sports teams is extremely pronounced to all participating in campus life.
As part of a campus that is located in the midst of a bustling city, the sports teams at Stern are almost inevitably going to receive less attention and fervor than at colleges located in quieter towns. But that insufficient attention could be rectified with a full sized gym. At other schools, a home court serves as a unifying force for all students by promoting participation in support of a larger force: the college teams.
For students at Stern who have experienced larger schools with more student body support for athletics, the lack of such excitement on this campus is detrimental to school pride.
Stephanie Dadon, a transfer student from Florida State University (FSU) notes her observations about school spirit between the two schools. “The center of pride and joy [at FSU] as well as the cause of a pulsating school spirit originates from the sports teams. Students prepare for games beforehand, and celebrate victories long after,” she said.
“Friends still at FSU express the immense pride they feel towards their school’s sports,” Dadon added. “Stern is a very different school in many respects, but simply due to our lack of a personal gymnasium, I feel less of a drive to go to games. With our games being at another’s home court, we are naturally associated with another university, which innately reduces our school pride.”
Jenny Wiseman feels similarly about the relationship between sports games taking place at a gym that does not belong to Stern and a student’s personal drive to go and support YU teams. “In terms of distance, the walk from our Stern dorms to the Baruch campus may be less of a walk than for students at the University of Maryland and their walk from dorm to gymnasium, but simply that the Baruch gym does not belong to us is a discouraging factor in and of itself,” she said.
Lack of gym also contributes to the lack of awareness Stern students have concerning athletics. “For many girls who are not active members of sports teams, they do not feel connected or emotional towards the Stern teams,” said student May Arama. “If [one is] not on a team, many simply don’t realize the sheer existence of them,” she continued.
Arama added a point about the natural “out of sight, out of mind” complex that exists within human nature. “Due the fact our emotional and conscious states are so deeply impacted by our physical surroundings, the lack of a spirit-filled, energized home court gym seems to naturally contribute to a lack of spirit, energy and simple awareness within the student body itself,” she said.
Rita Gordon, former member of the Stern basketball team and current member of the soccer team speaks of the emotional elements attached to a real home court. “Rather than investing its money into the creation of a home court gym, the athletic department continues renting out expensive gyms in Manhattan. The creation of a fan-oriented base is fruitless without our own gym. There is also emotional depletion when other schools enter and one does not have the roar and power of one’s own gym as an emotional defense.”
Students also speak of the neutral or slightly negative tone that is attached to Stern Athletes. “When students of Stern think of those participating in athletics, they deem these girls as distant, almost alien in their choice of playing sports, as well as difficult to understand,” explained Annie Jaffe, a goalie on the soccer team. “With a gym to call its own, coming to watch and support Stern teams challenge other schools would be far easier, and with that, perhaps an evolutionary change in the culture and attitude of Stern students will occur.”
Jaffe also commented on the current gymnasium located on the 11th floor of 245 Lexington Ave. “One cannot hold a productive practice in there,” she said. She further urged, “With the unity and awareness, as well as the igniting of emotional attachment that comes about with our own gym, perhaps being a member of a sports team will transform from an activity to partake in during free time, into something to be immensely proud of.”