On our campus, it does not take long to notice the athlete, non-athlete divide. Whether it be where people sit at mission dining hall or going out on the weekend and seeing how exclusive some of the houses are when it comes to who is at the party. Anyone who denies this divide is either completely biased towards one side or clueless when is comes to the social scene on our campus. I am writing this article because I believe this problem should be addressed and discussed. Even if there is no significant changes being made to close the gap between the two parties, I think our campus social life would greatly improve even by the slightest of efforts by both sides.
In order to discuss this topic I thought it would be appropriate to hear from both sides of the spectrum. The first quote comes from an anonymous athlete and they stated, “There is certainly an athlete, non-athlete divide on campus and it’s an issue everyone should address. People often make jokes about it but aren’t taking any action to fix it. It will take the effort of people from both sides to bridge the gap. I believe this begins with having a candid and mature conversation about it with people from both sides.” This individual acknowledged the clear divide on our campus. Actions like these are some of those little steps I think we all can take to improve this divide.
My next quote comes from a non-athlete who stated, “There is without question a big gap between the athletic teams and non-athletes. It is hard to blame anyone for the way it is, but it would be nice to be less ‘cliquey’ on our campus. It seems like this team only parties with themselves or the men’s team of a sport only parties with the women’s team of that sports and so on. It would be nice to meet more people and I am certainly not against it, but it is awkward and intimidating to just go up to what seems like an already solidified group of people and try to be friends. It goes both ways though and I know us non-athletes can be just as ‘cliquey’ as the sport teams, both sides need to work on it.”
It is clear that both parties know that their is a divide, and both sides also know that their side can be just as closed off to the idea of coming together as the other side. This is unhealthy because clearly no one is against the idea of getting to know the other side. It just seems like thats the way it is on our campus so we put up with it and just go along with it. This to me makes no sense and I think we can change the way things work on this campus by going up to someone you don’t know from the other side and just starting a conversation. Maybe even just talking about a class you share with them, orientation group, etc. Who knows, they may share similar points of view with you and may not be as different as our divide makes us think.