By Maya Liquigan

October 16, 2024

Columbia’s Renegades sports teams and clubs can no longer use the gym facilities at East-West University for practices due to budget cuts tied to the college’s financial deficit. 

After the Student Organization Council merged with the Student Athletics Association at the start of the semester, the school stopped paying to rent practice spaces for the sports teams. 

Columbia students first got access to the East-West gym facilities in 2014, as the Chronicle previously reported.The SAA used to pay roughly $60,000 per year to use the gym, according to Paige Johnson, the president of the SOC. 

The facilities at East-West were the primary home to several indoor sports teams now concerned about finding practice space. The outdoor sports teams, which practice at different parks around the Loop when the weather is nice, used the East-West gym during the winter. 

Some sports like the Renegades Badminton Club are not officially recognized under SOC and have not met this semester since there is no space for them to practice. When the organizations merged, sports teams were required to fill out a new recognition form, Johnson said. 

Xin Huang, a graduate student studying arts management, was part of the Renegades Badminton Club last year. She found out about the loss of the East-West facilities during the summer. 

“Honestly, I kind of saw it coming,” Huang said. “I’m a bit frustrated that budget issues are impacting not only students’ classes but also students’ campus and club experience.” 

Most of the sports teams were notified through email of the budget changes. Madeline Hein, the president of the Renegades Volleyball Team, said she received a long email with a short paragraph at the end describing the changes for sports during the fall semester. 

“It felt like the floor opened,” Hein said. “I’ve never had to worry about finding a place to practice. For as long as I’ve been on the team, we’ve always had that space. So, it was just never a concern and now we can’t do anything until we have a space.” 

Columbia does not have a formal athletic program like DePaul University or Roosevelt University, which compete in the NCAA. East-West University is a member of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association. 

But under the Renegades name, Columbia sports teams and clubs play in intercollegiate, social and club leagues. There are roughly 16 sports teams and clubs at Columbia with the largest club having nearly 130 student-athletes.The number of students on the teams vary and some students only attend a few practices in a semester.

Hein has been on the volleyball team for three years. Practices used to be held at East-West gym twice a week with two groups: a competitive team and a noncompetitive group. The competitive team is tryout-based and the second group is open to any student. The volleyball season runs through the fall and spring semesters. Since the full team has not met this semester, Hein does not know how many members there are but said that 40 new people joined the Engage Group during New Student Convocation in August. 

The gym space at East-West was used by most of the sports teams at Columbia and was not an additional cost to each team’s individual budgets, according to Hein. She said that they used their funds to buy new volleyballs for the team, but the equipment is now at East-West gym, and she has not been able to access it.

The Chronicle called East-West, and a security guard at the gym said students can retrieve their equipment. 

Johnson said that the merging of SOC and SAA was simple because they were “essentially the same organization” with minor differences, Johnson has been SOC president for two years and said that the addition of sports teams was “new territory” with different priorities. 

While SOC helps student clubs with event planning and catering, the sports teams need support with practice locations, travel needs and game equipment. SOC said that with the budget changes, the cost of renting East-West gym space was too expensive. 

All the organizations under SOC can request up to $1,000 for the academic year. 

Hein said that she has done research on her own to find a practice space near campus and has not received a lot of communication from SOC. The costs for gym spaces can be up to $400 a day, according to Hein who received a quote from Roosevelt University. 

The Renegades Volleyball Club has only met once this semester for a beach volleyball event. 

Zane Kazor, president of the Renegades Soccer Team, said he did not know about the pull-out of East-West gym space until hearing about it at Convocation from the volleyball team members. Kazor said the soccer team will not need gym space until winter. The soccer team previously used East-West twice a week. Soccer season begins in the fall semester, but the competitive season starts in the spring.

“Once the weather turns, we’ll have to move inside,” he said. “That is a bit of a worry, but we play in everything unless we’re told not to. We’ll play in the rain tonight, unless it’s a thunderstorm but the weather really isn’t a concern until it starts snowing and we can’t get out there.” 

The soccer team practices at Livingston Field Park, a public park that is around 40 minutes away from campus by public transportation. Patricio Gutierrez, a sophomore film and television major who is on the soccer team, said that he does not like how far away the park is but understands that there are no public soccer fields near Columbia’s downtown campus. 

While playing at the Renegade soccer team practice, Waldo Perez, a photography transfer student, tries to take a shot with Eric Tatum, a senior film and television BFA major, right behind him at Livingston Park on Oct. 15, 2024.

Gutierrez said he is not worried for his team and has been enjoying practices so far this year. He said the team is “like a second family” and he is excited to build community at the school. The lack of indoor gym space is not an issue for the soccer team yet, he said. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m worried, but East-West has definitely caused an unnecessary additional concern for the board,” Gutierrez said. “I don’t even think we should have to be worrying about where we’re going to practice during the winter in the first place when we already had a perfectly fair agreement with them.”

For other indoor teams, like badminton, not having a gym has stopped them from meeting completely. The Renegades Badminton Club did not officially re-recognize this year, according to SOC. 

“I was pissed,” said Eunkyung Kim, who is on the badminton club’s board. “I heard about the cut and was like ‘What about us? What’s gonna happen to badminton? What’s gonna happen to volleyball, quadball, every indoor sports team?’ We’re just so lost right now.”

According to Kim and Hein, one solution that was suggested by SOC was to take funds from each indoor sports team and put it towards gym rentals.

Even so, Kim said that they would still not have a space until November. 

The badminton club board usually holds practice during the fall and spring semesters.

“I feel very sorry for our members,” Kim said. “It’s just the fact that we haven’t really given them answers to what was going on. I feel like we took their fun away from them.” 

Jiyoon Kim, a junior arts management major, said that the badminton club helped her meet new people when she joined in January.

“There were quite a lot of students in the club, including a large portion of international students,” she said. “I could meet and connect with them, and they helped me get used to this new environment. Not only did this club fulfill my athletic desire, but a sense of belonging.”

Hein has been playing volleyball for 13 years and said the team at Columbia gave her “this incredible feeling of self-fulfillment” even though a lot of people at Columbia are not aware of the sports on campus.

Last year, the Renegades Volleyball team competed multiple times against the East-West Phantoms Volleyball team and planned on inviting more surrounding schools. When Hein told the team that there was no gym, many of the competitive members were no longer interested in playing. Hein said she is not sure what will happen to the volleyball team this year. 

“I feel a little bit more resentment towards the general administration, whoever’s decision it was to kick us out of East-West for whatever reason,” Hein said. “I feel like they didn’t even talk to a student about it. I know we’re an art school, but a lot of people do sports.”

Copy edited by Manuel Nocera.