Travel teams: The logistics of collegiate club athletics

According to LMU's club sports webpage, club sports are "recognized student organizations (RSOs) formed by individuals motivated by a common interest and desire to participate in a favorite sport activity ... Its members learn new skills, refine existing ones, engage in competition against other colleges/universities and enjoy the recreational and social fellowship of sports.”

While this description serves as a comprehensive overview of what club sports organizations are all about, the specific line about competition against other schools begs the question of how club sports teams handle the logistics behind traveling to games.

“Before we even have the game, we have to submit an event request form. We have to let the school know as early as possible that we will be having a game. There have been cases with schedule changes where there will be a game on short notice, and for those we have a travel request due the Wednesday before a game,” said Leo Guerrini Romano, sophomore history major and the administrative officer for Loyola Rugby.

There is a massive amount of commitment that goes into club athletics, especially considering the demanding game schedule that consists of traveling for away games. While Division I athletic teams often have flights and accommodations made for them with their travel schedule, it is up to students to coordinate with the club sports body to figure out the necessities when it comes to traveling as a club team.

Most often, these club team away games are in-state within two hours and do not constitute longer stays, such as the Club Soccer finals tournament, which took place from April 12-14 in Irvine, CA. The fields were roughly 45 minutes to an hour away, and the team did not stay overnight, instead opting to travel back to LMU each day.

Each club team is different — for example, the Ultimate Frisbee team has stayed overnight at several places while traveling for tournaments — however, it comes down to how that specific team chooses to run its operations when it travels.

In addition, traveling is not done utilizing school-provided means. Players heavily rely on each other for things such as transportation. “It’s always been carpooling to games. Usually, it’ll just be meet the morning of, and we’ll divide into people who can drive and people who need a ride and allocate from there,” said Romano.

When it comes to traveling with these schedules, athletes' coordination in ride-planning and keeping track of general logistics and permissions when traveling is imperative. Along with this, there are several multi-team tournaments where all participating teams travel to one location to compete.

One thing that isn’t as well known, is that at least for in-state games and tournaments, the cost of traveling falls entirely on the students of the club team.

“The ownership is all on us for gas, fees and stuff like that. We don’t receive any financial aid for travel. We have the [Campus Recreation] budget which if we were having an out-of-state game we could use to pay for [airline] tickets,” said Romano.

It may seem improbable for student organizations to travel this often, but thanks to the strong passion of students for their sports and their willingness to travel for hours just to compete, surmounting this obstacle is possible.

“I feel like a lot of people think that club sports are given more freedom and resources by the school than it actually is. In my experience, it is almost entirely player led, financed and organized. Each student that participates in club sports is basically the team. It would not exist without them," said Romano.

Whether home or away, LMU club athletics showcase a student’s desire to play. Attending their games is a great way to support both school spirit and the committed student athletes who care so much about their sports.