It is now official: in the fall term of 2017-18, the Riverhawks will add six new sports programs for students to participate in. These new sports will include wrestling, cross country and obstacle racing for men and women.
Craig Jackson, UCC’s new athletic director, is expanding the college’s sports programs partly to help increase enrollment.
Jackson is looking at these new teams from an “enrollment perspective,” meaning that “six teams add 85 students to UCC.”
With the potential extra students, UCC will receive more funding, making more programs for all students to enjoy. If these new programs are successful, students can hopefully expect even more athletic programs in the future.
All of these new programs will offer athletic scholarships for students with a variety of different award amounts going towards tuition.
Right now, UCC is working on developing a cross-country and obstacle racing track before the new season starts.
The wrestling program will be using Oregon State University’s old wrestling mats that were generously donated. Athletes from the OSU wrestling team also assisted in getting the mats ready for transport. The wrestling practice will probably be held in the UCC gym, and Jackson will be arranging a practice schedule to accommodate volleyball, basketball and wrestling.
Many students are very excited at the prospect of either participating or watching the new programs. Tyler Jose, a student at UCC, is “excited to see how they (the new programs) do.” Jose speculates that attendance will “start off small, but as the season goes on, more students will attend.” He would love to see more programs at UCC in the future including football, but for now, suggests students and staff sit back, relax and cheer on the Riverhawk’s new teams in 2017.
UCC will be competing against other teams in their very first season. How will these teams do? What will their records be? Will they make the playoffs? Can we expect them to stay at UCC for a long time? All of these questions will be answered in due time, but for now, if any students are interested in these new programs, they can go to UCC’s website and on the athletics page, click the “Play for the Riverhawks” link.