MCCC’s long history of athletic programs seems to have come to a screeching halt.
Throughout MCCC’s 51 years of academic excellence there have almost always been athletic programs made available to its students. But now due to a lack of funding and interest there are no collegiate sports offered to students.
In the past MCCC had offered cross country, basketball, golf, and volleyball as collegiate sports that would travel playing other small universities and junior colleges.
The only sports left on campus are the club volleyball team, who plays in a league at the Arthur Lesow Community Center in downtown Monroe and the intramural basketball league that plays once a week in the health building.
Karen Turner is the advisor for the volleyball club who enrolled them in the league but the team members decided that a coach was not necessary.
“Even though they are adults I think they need a coach to set things up, keep them organized, and feel more committed. I guess the commitment wasn’t there,” Turner said.
The team struggled this year in finding players to join the club as well as struggling on the court, failing to win a single game.
Kim Henry, an MCCC student, was a member of the volleyball club for the first time this year. She joined to play with a few of her friends on the team and tried to make the best of her time on the court.
“We made it fun even though we weren’t very good,” Henry said.
The intramural basketball league held each semester has no shortage of basketball players that come out each week to play in a competitive league.
Many of the students are former high school players who did not receive any scholarships to play at the next level.
Some of the more competitive players have shown interest in the college sponsoring a collegiate team and competing against other colleges.
Michael Malak, a member of the league, made a suggestion as to how they might show the administration the push that there is for a collegiate program at MCCC.
“I believe that we could do a petition around campus and see how many signatures we could receive,” Malak said. “If you get the right coach there, starting the team wouldn’t be very difficult.”
Karen Turner is also the advisor for the basketball league and knows how strongly some of these players feel about the sport.
“A lot of these guys are pretty passionate about it, and a lot of them talk about trying next year to play somewhere else,” Turner said.
Unfortunately if there is just an intramural league the level of competition does not adequately prepare them to play at the next level.
With a lack of funding for these teams as well as a lack of interest in the volleyball club the athletic state of MCCC is in peril.
