The CSUN archery club is struggling to gain traction this season after missing the registration deadline for its first potential competition on March 9, 2018 due to budgetary constraints.
According to club president David Torres, an expected budget fund of $1,000 was withheld from the club by the Sports Club Council pending further consideration. The anticipated fund had been earmarked for registration fees required to compete in the upcoming competition.
The club also maintains an agency fund of about $2,000 derived from club dues, which is generally reserved for equipment, repairs, and apparel. Torres avoided using funds from this account for registration because it would have wiped out a significant portion of funds for the year with the budget fund being in limbo.
Sports Club Council President Samantha Sveiven said budget funds are not guaranteed to any club and every year each club must formally request funding. The council, a student-run governing authority, approves these requests based on need and competitive merit, since the money is derived from the university’s finances.
“We’re not going to just give out money so teams can scrimmage all year,” Sveiven said.
For CSUN Archery however, the problem was simply an error in procedure. As a condition for funding, the Sports club council requires regular attendance at council meetings as well as formal requests for funding. Sveiven said the council had reserved funds for the club but they had not been dispersed since the club had not been represented at meetings since spring 2017 and no contact had been made with the council about funding.
According to Torres, the torch was passed clumsily leaving him to figure out the bureaucracy of running a sports club team on his own.
The council voted to disperse the budget fund to CSUN Archery as of March 14, 2018 since contact with the club had been restored.
Besides funding issue, the team has also been plagued early on by unfavorable weather, cutting the number of available practice days shorter than Torres would like.
Many members of this year’s team are also very new to the sport making entry into competition a difficult decision.
“At some point I have to toss us into competition,” Torres said. “I also have to be cautious not to lower morale.”
Numbers are not in their favor either with only five competing members from the 156 students who originally showed interest in joining the club. Out of the five competitors only one is female, making entry in a female team event impossible.
“I’m very competitive,” club competitor Amanda Treguboff said. “I want to be up there.”
The West Region Outdoor Collegiate Championship (WROCC), held at UCSD this year, is typically the largest college-only event in the West and the largest collegiate regionals in the country. The competition would have offered CSUN its highest profile entry in a collegiate archery event this season.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for CSUN archery, and any other collegiate archery team, is the scarcity of nationally recognized competitions.
Torres is currently uncertain of when CSUN Archery’s next opportunity will be but vows they will get a chance this season.
“I must compete in at least one competition this year,” Torres said.
Torres said with more funding and school support, the club could do much more and possibly attend out-of-state competitions, or have CSUN host its own. “The question is ‘are we ready?'”
