Editor’s Note: This is a guest commentary. The opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.
I have been a member of the Ithaca College club softball team since my first semester of my first year at IC. The team has been my safe haven for as long as I have been on campus, and yet our “home” games are not even in the City of Ithaca.
There is some sort of administrative barrier preventing the club team from using Kostrinsky Field, the softball field on campus. I can understand why we cannot practice on the field, maintaining a facility like that takes effort and time, as well as a little bit of money. But we are running out of places to go. The good fields are booked months in advance, the ones that are open cost $700 to rent for three games and the ones that are cheap are either at least an hour away or so poorly maintained we’d have better luck playing a game on the Campus Center quad in December.
I am not proposing we open Kostrinsky up to the public, I am asking for one day across an entire semester. Priority should always go to the varsity athletes, but what about when they are not using the field? It does not matter what time of day it is or how cold it is, I can guarantee you that we have practiced and played in worse conditions.
Our field that we practiced on, Yavits Field, was recently replaced with a shiny new track. This past semester, practices were held on the lowest practice football field. We had to be careful of the direction we threw and hit because we were afraid of hitting a ball onto Danby Road into oncoming traffic. We also had to end up cutting practices short towards the middle of the semester, because it was getting dark early enough that we could not safely practice. During the winter, we move inside to the Athletics and Events Center. While time slots are limited and winter practices have always been late at night, it has continuously gotten worse throughout the years. Club softball’s official practices for this semester run from 9:30-10:45 p.m.
On Feb. 16, which was scheduled for a night practice, there was an event earlier in the day and since no one communicated that with us, we ended up fielding ground balls in between rows of fold-up tables. Nearly all of our shared equipment: tees, a single training net, the team gloves/helmets/bats and the team catcher’s gear, were donated by family members of the team, as well as by students on the team themselves. The team catcher’s gear, for instance, is technically mine. It was gifted to me by an old coach of mine who also happens to be the father of our president. One of the spare gloves is the old catching glove of an old teammate, a close friend of mine, gifted to me by her father, who coached me for seven years of my life. The three tees we own were a donation from a former teammates’ grandmother. There are pieces of the lives of my teammates and me in every part of our organization.
My executive board members and I, both current and former, have poured our hearts and souls into this organization, but because this institution cannot keep an athletic director to save their lives, the burden of maintaining these clubs financially has fallen on the students and the families of students. Fundraisers that used to work are not working anymore. Dues used to be $50 for a whole academic year, they have since risen to $80.
Sports are an important part of culture, and with it, community. I do not have a sister by blood, but believe me when I say have had dozens of sisters spanning dozens of teams. The memories, lessons and love that softball has brought me have proven invaluable, and that is something worth protecting. Ithaca College has gone through three club athletic directors in the past four years and without their guidance and experience, club athletics have suffered. This institution does not give us money and actively impedes on our ability to play and practice. Access to Kostrinsky Field, even for just one day across a semester, would be a game-changer.
Marshall Long (He/Him) is a senior politics major at IC. Contact him via email at [email protected]
