For the first time in many years, the cheers that filled the Smith Center this season weren’t coming just from the Colonial Army.

The success of the men’s basketball team has sparked a newfound interest in GW sports among students. The GW community rallied around the team, lifting school spirit and filling an unprecedented number of seats.

Now, it’s time to transfer that passion for varsity sports over to a larger part of student life: the club sports program.

While Division I sports may be thrilling to watch, playing for those teams isn’t possible for every student with a passion for athletics – only to a tiny slice of the population that’s actively recruited by GW. While I don’t play on a club team, that’s where athletic opportunities lie for my peers.

These are completely student-run organizations, like any other student group, which receive funds from the Student Association. Sometimes, they’re lower-key versions of popular varsity sports, like baseball and basketball, but club teams also fill gaps where no varsity teams exist, like men’s lacrosse, ice hockey, rugby and ultimate frisbee, competing regionally as well as on the national level.

The SA recently grew the budget of the Club Sports Council – the group that oversees all club teams and allocates money to each of them – by 28 percent, making it the group with the third largest budget at GW. It falls behind only mammoth organizations like the Student Bar Association and Program Board.

But the council’s president, Fiona Dore, told me in an email that club teams still face an “uphill battle” despite the recent boost in funds.

“While the CSC appreciated the increase in overall funding, we are still affected by high costs that can be avoided,” she said.

The biggest expense is transportation. Since the athletic department only offers vans to club teams on weekdays, and the bulk of club competition happens on weekends, players are forced to drive personal cars or costly rentals to games.

And when it comes time to play at home, club teams often have to vie for facilities. Three varsity teams and 15 outdoor club teams have to share the only available field on the Mount Vernon Campus. That’s a lot to fit onto just one field already, but add another limitation: The field doesn’t have lights, so all teams have to be allocated daylight playing time.

To mitigate the problem, some club teams find absurd, albeit effective, solutions: Dore said the men’s lacrosse team recently rented a costly field at Catholic University. That’s a 40-minute Metro ride away, compared to the quick 15-minute Vern Express trip, which is already the farthest any team should have to travel to play a home game.

The same things club teams have to fight for – facilities, funding, respect – varsity sports take for granted. While club sports may not attract the same national attention, they have the ability to engage a far wider range of students in a healthy and fun activity than varsity sports ever could.

Not just anyone can play a club sport, of course, but the stakes are far lower: If your tryout goes well, you can walk onto a team rather than spend all of high school laying the foundation for a college sports career. You can quit and not risk losing an athletic scholarship and, often, your ability to attend GW at all.

“We would like the school and athletic department to take seriously the notion that every club athlete is representing the GW community and school when we take the field, rink or court and bear ‘GW’ on our chests,” Dore said.

Club athletes may play as Colonials, but that’s not the recognition they receive from the University. Administrators can’t expect students to wholeheartedly cheer for a varsity team when obstacles prevent them from being considered true athletes themselves.

Sunik Kim, a freshman in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, is a Hatchet opinions writer.