UBC’s women’s softball team will be missing in action as of September 2015, according to the Thunderbirds’ head coach Gord Collings.
The softball team was one of five UBC varsity teams relegated to club status one week ago at the end of a lengthy review of the university’s 29 varsity sports.
Collings said he was stunned softball was the only team sport, and the only sport among the five with a full-time coach, that was dropped from varsity status.
While the announcement from UBC’s varsity review board stated that as a club, the softball team and the men’s and women’s ski teams will continue to receive honorariums for coaches, have access to facilities and retain their Thunderbirds name, Collings said the team won’t survive.
“There is no one to play during the school year,” he said.
To play other universities, teams must be affiliated with a university league. As a club, the Thunderbirds softball team will no longer qualify.
Team captain and fourth year third base Cassandra Dypchey said she was confused and saddened by the decision.
“A lot of us took it as a kind of a stab to the heart,” she said.
She said she feels most for the younger girls who, unlike her, will be eligible to play in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics after this year.
Second year Thunderbird Lauren du Toit said it is tough one of the main reasons she came to the school will no longer exist.
“If I want to continue playing softball now you have to think of if you want to leave the university,” she said.
UBC and SFU are the only two Canadian teams playing in U.S. competition, so her options are limited.
The UBC summary review document lays out lack of league competition, lack of a home field and lack of community engagement as the reasons for the review’s decision.
Collings said when softball was left off the original list of 16 teams to remain varsity in January, he presented a proposal addressing the review board’s concerns.
“We were told that we did a very good job of addressing those issues,” he said.
The team plays in the Association of Independent Institutions, part of the NAIA, as SFU has done successfully for 18 years.
The team also had its best season ever last year (25-21). So far the women have six wins and six losses this season.
Collings said while the team doesn’t have a home field, he proposed sharing space with either the new field in the works for the UBC baseball team or on a portion of the field being built for the Whitecaps.
For both of these home field proposals, softball would pick up the tab for the necessary softball modifications.
He said concerns over lack of community engagement doesn’t make sense. The team was part of Lace up for Kids in support of the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation— the only team that came out in full force — and the players participate in cancer research fundraisers and support other varsity teams, Collings said.
Ashley Howard, UBC managing director of athletics and assessment team chair, said the decision was more about how the team stacked up in comparison to other teams as opposed to meeting basic criteria.
She said UBC student fan support was lower for softball than for other sports. She said she plans to meet with the players to explain the decision and the appeal process they can pursue.
She recognized the situation was difficult.
“They were a competitive club before they became varsity [five years ago] so they are used to a particular standard that they want to be in. And I understand that letting go of that would be hard if not pretty much impossible for most people,” she said.
Down the road new students may want to start up a competitive softball club of their own, she said.
The team costs the school $120,000 and the team raises an additional $50,000. The money accounts for less than two per cent of the UBC’s $6.4 million athletic budget.
Both Collings and Dypchey said they would wait to hear what appeal options the team has, but in the meantime the team will take to the field.
“Even though we’re down, our spirits are down, this is driving us to succeed even more, “ said Dypchey.
The team plays the St. Martin’s Saints in Lacey, Wash. on March 11.
