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Sports

TRUSU shows its support for men’s volleyball

Cam Charron - Sports Editor

TRUSU is doing its part to show its support for the TRU WolfPack come March when the men’s volleyball national championships come to town.

In this case, union executive director Nathan Lane announced at Thursday’s Annual General Meeting that they would provide fans at the Tournament Capital Centre with noisemakers. “We have expensed about $1,000 which is going to be for providing, I believe the appropriate term is ‘thundersticks,’” Lane said. “People will have ‘Back the Pack’ thundersticks to help support the volleyball team during nationals and that is expensed in the budget.”

Lane explained TRUSU’s plan when asked about union dollars going to support athletics when outlining TRUSU’s budget for the upcoming year.

“It’s nice,” said 2nd year tourism student and WolfPack volleyball fan Tyler Clarke. “Honestly, it’s good for them to show support like that.”

But other students, when informed of the plan, didn’t take kindly towards union dollars going to support a program that already earns its fair slice of the pie. TRUSU offers two scholarships to student-athletes already.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s good to support our athletes and such,” said 4th-year business student Gino Bonanno, “but it seems a bit excessive to spend $1,000 on glorified noisemakers.”

3rd-year arts student Susan Kaliciak concurs. “I’m not sure sure what I’m supposed to say about that, it seems like a bad idea. They could just use their hands to clap instead. Those are free.”

Whether or not union dollars should be going to support athletics is a decision that probably comes down to whether or not a student gets out to games much. As Kyle Bowman, who doubles as TRUSU president and a longtime member of the WolfPack men’s soccer team, points out, athletes are just another student group that TRUSU goes out to support.

“We do support all groups on campus,” Bowman said in a phone interview Friday. “[Volleyball nationals] is a big event, and for us it seemed like a good idea to get involved.”

“We’re jumping on the bandwagon.”

The national championship will be held from March 12 to March 14 at the Tournament Capital Centre and will be the first time that a Canadian Intrauniversity Sport champion, the highest level of athletic competition in Canadian university athletics, will be crowned on this campus.