Addition of New Sports to Athletics Department
Iris Seaton | February 2, 2023
The athletics department at Warren Wilson College (WWC) will be adding four teams to their roster including men’s volleyball, women’s rugby and men’s and women’s track and field. WWC’s available facilities and desire to maintain student population are important factors in the new additions.
Currently, WWC boasts six men’s sports teams and seven women’s teams. Robin Davis, women’s basketball team coach of nine years and WWC’s athletic director for one, has been closely involved in the process of integrating the sports. She explained the several factors involved in choosing to grow the program and the process of deciding which sports were a fit.
“Part of it is the demand for facilities,” Davis said. “So we’re adding women’s volleyball already — men’s volleyball competes at the opposite time. So in spring, we’re redoing our floor for volleyball. So that seemed like a natural fit.”
Volleyball wasn’t the only sport being added which was chosen partially for the easy access to needed resources.
“We’re working on a partnership with Owen High School to use their track,” Davis said.
Apart from these available resources, popularity and growing interest were simple reasons for adding these sports. Davis explained that knowledge of the students generally recruited to play for WWC was another important factor in determining which new sports would draw the most students.
“It’s in the hottest growing sports right now for the men’s side,” Davis said. “And [it’s] super popular in North Carolina. It’s also a distinctive sport, much like women’s rugby. It’s not offered by all of our competitors. So it gives us a little bit of a competitive edge in the recruiting world.”
Currently, one important first step is already underway — hiring coaches. Davis and the athletics search committee are actively searching for coaches for men’s volleyball and men’s and women’s track and field. The search for a women’s rugby coach will begin in February or March.
Bob Nesmith, Interim Vice President of Enrollment, Marketing and Financial Aid, spoke to the value of sports in college communities like WWC.
A crucial part of Nesmith’s job is working to bring new students to WWC. Even with the recent displacement of 77 students due to major weather damage to the Villages A and B dormitories, Nesmith explains that the student population has room to grow.
“Historically, Warren Wilson has been as big in the not too distant past as 950 or so students,” Nesmith said. “Right now in spring semester of 2023, we’re closer to 670 students. We started the fall right around 700.”
Nesmith explained that WWC’s enrollment goals are not to grow the student population exponentially all at once, but to keep the population stable as students graduate. He also hopes to grow numbers slowly without putting strain on the campus facilities.
“It does gradually build enrollment,” Nesmith said. “But we're not going to all of a sudden import 50 new people who had never heard of Warren Wilson because we bought a women's rugby team.”
Also of importance is WWC’s ability to grow graduation rates, retaining students who do enroll through the duration of their college experience.
“We do have data that retention is stronger for students who compete on teams,” Nesmith said. “And knows all the reasons why, but that is something we've observed in our own student body. So if it helps more students succeed and graduate, that'd be a great outcome.
Beyond enrichment of the lives of individual students and the graduation rate of WWC students, WWC is currently undergoing the process of becoming a Division III NCAA school. According to the NCAA website, schools offering Division III athletics are able to offer certain advantages.
According to the NCAA website, Division III athletics provides “a well-rounded collegiate experience that involves a balance of rigorous academics, competitive athletics, and the opportunity to pursue the multitude of other co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities offered on Division III campuses.”
Another key piece of Division III is explained on the site as “an intense and competitive athletics environment for student-athletes who play for the love of the game, without the obligation of an athletics scholarship.”
Nesmith spoke to his personal opinion on this particular benefit to the WWC student body.
“I think that, broadly speaking, Division III non-scholarship athletics is the right model for college athletics,” Nesmith said. “Students should compete for the love of the sport and their camaraderie with their teammates, and all the good things they get from the experience, not because it's a job.”