2008 Woodie Awards
Dance Team finally reaches club status
Aubrey Gibavic
Issue date: 11/18/04 Section: Sports
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For the past two years that the dance team has been in existence, the team was not funded by the athletic department and was titled a "Student Interest Group," even though they were posted on the athletics Web site.
"[Student Government Association (SGA)] would tell us, go to athletics [to get funding], and athletics would tell us, go to SGA. We were always in the middle," junior captain Meredith Wentworth said.
But this year, Wentworth and fellow senior captain Jessica Hobin went to the athletic department with the intent to be named an official club sport.
"We were very prepared for it this year," Wentworth said. "We went in with a portfolio and said 'this is what we do, and we'd like your funding and helping us out this year'."
The Athletic Department agreed, and now the dance team is an officially sanctioned Emerson Athletics Club Team.
The team dances at both Emerson College women's and men's basketball games throughout the winter season. Flowing out onto the floor at halftime, the dancers provide a halftime show for parents, friends and fans that come to support the two basketball teams.
Emerson does not currently have its own gym where teams play home games, so the Lions practice and play home games at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill. The basketball players make their way out to Pine Manor via vans owned by the Athletics Department, but because the dance team was not an official team in past years, it had to find its own way to the games.
"We had to ride the T all the way out to Pine Manor, which is on the Green Line by [Boston college]," Wentworth said. "Then it was a 10-15 minute walk from the T, especially during the winter when it is kind of cold."
Now that the team is sanctioned by the department, each member will be certified to drive the department's vans and will no longer have to take public transportation to events.