William James
The Broadside

Oregon State University-Cascades has cleared the way for new club sports including Cyclocross and snow sports. Bruce Petersen, OSU-Cascades employment coordinator has been approved for funding to begin a club sports program on campus for  that campus’ students.
The planned sports programs will include Nordic skiing, mountain biking and Cyclocross, according to Petersen. He plans to partner with COCC’s intramural sports program, which is headed by Bill Douglass and Matt Greenleaf.
“We envision this as sports that we are looking to compete at a very very high level in,” said Petersen.
OSU-Cascades will offer only club sports that are not governed by the National Collegiate Athletics Association. This is so players and athletes of every skill level can participate, according to Petersen.
“Not everyone will have to have an elite level of skill to participate,” said Petersen.
Petersen requested the funding on Feb. 15, 2012. The Associated Students of Cascades Campus met to discuss the proposal on Feb. 24 and on the morning of March 8, they approved the funding for Petersen. However, the program will not start immediately according to Petersen.
“We’ll be launching programs for the 2012-2013 academic year,” he said. “Until then, we’ll be getting the word out.”
The tentative plan going forward is to raise awareness by partnering with local organizations. Fundraisers and other events are in the works but Petersen was not able to confirm anything concrete as of yet.
“We’ll look at all avenues of engaging the community to make this program successful,” said Petersen.
ASCC approved Petersen $28,100 in total for the snow sports portion of the program, and approved $28,300 in total for the cycling program.
“This is exciting,” said Stephanie Warner, ASCC communications coordinator. “We’re all excited for this program to be part of Oregon State.”

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