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This post was authored by undergraduate student Sandra Magdaleno for Professor Christine Wilson's ENG 335 assignment, Writing as Social Action. It is part of a “Student Speaks” series on the RCL blog.
During my freshman year at Dominican, I was convinced there was nothing to do on campus. I was from the South Side of Chicago stuck in a northwest suburb. I expected to be bored.
The following summer, my boyfriend made me play pickleball with him. I hated it! It was hard and there was a lot of running back and forth. Maybe it’s because I didn't know how to play, or maybe it’s because he was way more competitive than I was, but I did not enjoy it.
When my sophomore year started, I made it my goal to make more friends on campus, but quickly realized I am not a very social person. I accepted an invitation to play pickleball with some people I had never met, figuring it would be a good way to meet new people. Even though I didn't get any better at playing during the year, it was so much more fun than it was in the summer.
I played with these new friends two to three times a week (rain or shine -- and turns out it's hard to play in the rain!) for the entire first semester until the outdoor courts closed in mid-November. Sometimes we asked other people to play, but we rarely got an answer. And if we did, it was a “no sorry” or “can't.” Needless to say, it got boring playing with the same three all the time, but with the outdoor season coming to an end, we still wanted to play as much as we could.
As four 19-year-old college students, we didn't (and don't) have the money for some type of gym membership. So we thought: “how can we keep playing, and for free?”
Dominican has a lot of clubs, but most seem to focus on majors or career paths and not something active. So why not try to start a pickleball club? We could get a place on campus to play indoors, maybe even get funding for the club to host events and get equipment. Best of all, we could get more people to play with.
So we began to figure out how to start a club on campus. I always heard it’s not hard. All you need is three core members and an advisor. So we made a constitution, found an advisor, and recruited people who wanted to be part of the club. After submitting our paperwork to the Office of Student Involvement (OSI), it took about two weeks to get approved. Then it was official: DU had a pickleball club!
Since creating the club, we have had four events in the Igini Sports Forum using equipment given to us by DU athletics. We have also put in a request to the Student Government Association (SGA) to receive funding for this year to get shirts for an end of the school year event we are planning. We have even had other clubs reach out to use to collaborate on events.
Looking back, Dominican had plenty of clubs I could have joined my freshman year. However, I'm glad nothing grabbed my attention. Not only did it motivate me to make new friends, but we created something on campus other students could join in as well. It wasn't hard to form our own community on campus; it just took a little bit of determination (ok, and a bunch of emails to secure space, etc.). But it has been totally worth it.
Now I get to play pickleball year-round and meet more people on campus who have similar interests as my friends and me. I'll see you on the court!