How did it start?
Throughout the years, several people had tried to start a women's soccer club at SBU, but gave up after the first meeting or practice when only a few people would show up or show interest. Nicole Himmelwright had tried to start the club earlier in her college career too, but a heavy engineering course load and lack of a dedicated partner hindered her original efforts. As a freshman, Kathryn Michaud sought out every playing opportunity: the pick up games, intramural teams, and was one of the only two girls that played consistently with the men's team. On March 13th, 2011, Derek Cope, President of the Men's Soccer Club at the time, made a winning combination when he introduced Kathryn and Nicole in an effort to get a women's team going at Stony Brook. From there, the dynamic duo made the facebook group and set up a meeting to try to gauge the interest level on campus for a women's team. They were able to scrounge up 17 girls for the first meeting, which had never been done before by the other people who had tried to start this team. Unfortunately, they quickly found out that getting girls to treck out to the Campus Rec Fields for practice would be much harder than getting people to show up to a meeting. Some practices would have 11 girls, while other times they would be the only two to show up, and frequently there were only 3-4 girls at a given practice including themselves. Despite the frustration, they stuck with it and the perseverance and hard work paid off. By the end of that first semester, the club played their first game ever against the Long Island Women's League team, Elwood Gold-diggers, which was comprised mostly of women who had played for their collegiate school team. With only 10 players, SBUWSC kept the score to 0-0 against the more experienced team until injuries late in the second half lead to a 2-0 loss.
Early Struggles
Getting girls to show up was the easiest part of running the club; the administrative aspect was quickly found to be the most challenging and frustrating. In order to be officially recognized by the school, we had to be registered and approved by Student Activities. We couldn't officially book rooms for meetings or space for games and practice until we were officially recognized. We had applied in the first spring semester and weren't approved until late in the fall 2011 despite 3 resubmissions of the application due to the administration losing it. We couldn't apply to the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) for funding until late that fall as a result.
We applied in the fall, 2011, as soon as possible for funding because the club was growing rapidly and we didn't have a club set of anything, not even soccer balls, cones, pinnies, jerseys, etc. All of the equipment the club used was equipment Kathryn luckily had from when she coached other teams. The USG officials at the time had intentionally set up a system in which new clubs couldn't receive funding unless they actually wanted to help that particular club. Clubs first had to contact the Vice President of Clubs and Organizations of USG, give their constitution to the VP of Clubs and Organizations, then the VP of Clubs and Organizations would give the club's constitution to the Chief Justice of USG who had set up a meeting with the other justices to approve that the constitution complied with USG laws, and then the VP of Clubs and Orgs was supposed to contact the club and give them the application. Once the club submitted their application, the Special Services Council was supposed to meet with the club to decide on what to recommend to the Senate for the club's budget. Once it was passed through SSC, the Senate had to vote on it in a Senate Meeting. All of this was required to get a maximum of $1750 total for two semesters before being possibly approved for Line Budget Status, which would enable us to apply for a larger budget. First, SBUWSC contacted the Vice President of Clubs and Organizations, submitted their Constitution and waited a few weeks to hear back with the results. When no notifications came, the club reached out to find more information and were told it would take more time. It turned out that the Vice President of Clubs and Orgs would wait a long time to submit the Constitutions to the Chief Justice and once the Chief Justice got it, they wouldn't bother to set up a meeting, so the process basically would stop there. That Vice President of Clubs and Organizations was brought up on impeachment charges and quit as a result so as to not face legal charges. The club's numbers doubled from the spring to the fall though, having 8 people on average at practice instead of 4 and there were about 30 girls total that could be called to play in games. The growth in the number of players, success in games, and family-like environment helped keep our heads up and the club moving forward.
It wasn't until the spring semester that the club heard back from the new Vice President of Clubs and Organizations. We then had to resubmit everything and again, the Chief Justice just held on to it, that is until Kathryn found out who it was, how to find him, and how to make him do his job. The President of USG at the time, Mark Maloof, helped the club by making sure the Chief Justice stopped purposefully holding constitutions and remained in contact with us to see how the club progressed. The new Vice President of Clubs and Organizations never reached out to us regarding the approval of our constitution, so we began to stop by the office all the time to check on it's status and find more information that we may not have been told. From there on out, everything was submitted by email and a follow up visit occurred, resulting in the process moving along much quicker. By the end of the Spring 2012 semester, most of the funding pool for SSC was already used up from being poorly budgeted by USG, but we received $560.19, enabling us to get soccer balls for the team and pay for an away game. We were still losing players though because of how much money players had to pay out of pocket in order to function as a club, despite the fundraising efforts.
In the fall 2012, we attained a budget of $1107.06, but our numbers had multiplied. We had held our first tryouts ever with 49 girls coming out to be a part of the club. More joined later on in the semester as they heard about us. We got a coach and were in the NIRSA League for the first time ever and won our division, earning our place at Regionals. We came in 18th in Region 1, an accomplishment considering how young our program was.
We became Line Budget Status at the very end of the semester so that we could apply in the spring, 2013, for a Line Budget. Now each spring the Treasurer can apply to USG for a budget for the club for the entire next year! This funding helps make it possible to function, but so much of clubs' budgets are cut by USG that we still collect a lot of money from players, fundraise, and are extremely thankful for any donations or sponsorships. Every year there are still girls that can't afford to play. Buffalo Wild Wings helped us out a lot during the Fall 2012-Spring 2013 academic year and made it so more players could afford to stay on the team: Thank you!!!
We applied in the fall, 2011, as soon as possible for funding because the club was growing rapidly and we didn't have a club set of anything, not even soccer balls, cones, pinnies, jerseys, etc. All of the equipment the club used was equipment Kathryn luckily had from when she coached other teams. The USG officials at the time had intentionally set up a system in which new clubs couldn't receive funding unless they actually wanted to help that particular club. Clubs first had to contact the Vice President of Clubs and Organizations of USG, give their constitution to the VP of Clubs and Organizations, then the VP of Clubs and Organizations would give the club's constitution to the Chief Justice of USG who had set up a meeting with the other justices to approve that the constitution complied with USG laws, and then the VP of Clubs and Orgs was supposed to contact the club and give them the application. Once the club submitted their application, the Special Services Council was supposed to meet with the club to decide on what to recommend to the Senate for the club's budget. Once it was passed through SSC, the Senate had to vote on it in a Senate Meeting. All of this was required to get a maximum of $1750 total for two semesters before being possibly approved for Line Budget Status, which would enable us to apply for a larger budget. First, SBUWSC contacted the Vice President of Clubs and Organizations, submitted their Constitution and waited a few weeks to hear back with the results. When no notifications came, the club reached out to find more information and were told it would take more time. It turned out that the Vice President of Clubs and Orgs would wait a long time to submit the Constitutions to the Chief Justice and once the Chief Justice got it, they wouldn't bother to set up a meeting, so the process basically would stop there. That Vice President of Clubs and Organizations was brought up on impeachment charges and quit as a result so as to not face legal charges. The club's numbers doubled from the spring to the fall though, having 8 people on average at practice instead of 4 and there were about 30 girls total that could be called to play in games. The growth in the number of players, success in games, and family-like environment helped keep our heads up and the club moving forward.
It wasn't until the spring semester that the club heard back from the new Vice President of Clubs and Organizations. We then had to resubmit everything and again, the Chief Justice just held on to it, that is until Kathryn found out who it was, how to find him, and how to make him do his job. The President of USG at the time, Mark Maloof, helped the club by making sure the Chief Justice stopped purposefully holding constitutions and remained in contact with us to see how the club progressed. The new Vice President of Clubs and Organizations never reached out to us regarding the approval of our constitution, so we began to stop by the office all the time to check on it's status and find more information that we may not have been told. From there on out, everything was submitted by email and a follow up visit occurred, resulting in the process moving along much quicker. By the end of the Spring 2012 semester, most of the funding pool for SSC was already used up from being poorly budgeted by USG, but we received $560.19, enabling us to get soccer balls for the team and pay for an away game. We were still losing players though because of how much money players had to pay out of pocket in order to function as a club, despite the fundraising efforts.
In the fall 2012, we attained a budget of $1107.06, but our numbers had multiplied. We had held our first tryouts ever with 49 girls coming out to be a part of the club. More joined later on in the semester as they heard about us. We got a coach and were in the NIRSA League for the first time ever and won our division, earning our place at Regionals. We came in 18th in Region 1, an accomplishment considering how young our program was.
We became Line Budget Status at the very end of the semester so that we could apply in the spring, 2013, for a Line Budget. Now each spring the Treasurer can apply to USG for a budget for the club for the entire next year! This funding helps make it possible to function, but so much of clubs' budgets are cut by USG that we still collect a lot of money from players, fundraise, and are extremely thankful for any donations or sponsorships. Every year there are still girls that can't afford to play. Buffalo Wild Wings helped us out a lot during the Fall 2012-Spring 2013 academic year and made it so more players could afford to stay on the team: Thank you!!!