Although ultimate can be played with a total cost of about $10 (for the disc), the college season costs are actually in the thousands of dollars for a legitimately competitive team. Being a school club team means that we get some funding from the university, but by no means enough to cover all of our expenses. As ultimate grows and the economy continues to tank, bid fees go up, university funding decreases, and job opportunities to raise money get snatched up. All of these circumstances, unfortunately, lead to a lack of funds which decrease the opportunities we can take advantage of and offer as a team.While the situation isn't ideal, it is humbling and in many ways strengthens us as a team. The bonding situations that arise from the adventures we endure in attempts to make a buck or two, honestly build our bonds as a team. Some teams throw a tournament as their big money maker. Unfortunately, living in Iowa, the months of the year when tournaments aren't already established, the fields are claimed by a couple feet of snow or mud. So we resort to pimping ourselves out in any way we can think of to get some money to pay for the future hours in the car that we crave.
In my four years with Woman Scorned, I have racked up some pretty interesting fundraising memories. My first and by far the most traumatizing fundraising adventure was cleaning Hilton Coliseum. Hilton is where ISU basketball, volleyball, wrestling, and many other events like concerts are held. After spending about 4-5 hours cleaning spilt beer, cheese, and the God-forsaken popcorn out of the 14,356 person arena, the team would usually earn anywhere from $500-$1000. It is a dirty, painful, demoralizing job, but we enjoyed the profits. Back when the team had about 9 girls, this job was especially brutal. Once the attendance policy was established and we started making fundraising and parties "mandatory", cleaning became a little less painful with the increased numbers. Many WS stories have stemmed from Hilton Cleaning, but the ones that stick out in my mind include the sophomores (at the time) eating a cup o' cookies that they found and claimed was unopened, Lauren, Jazz and I creating the Pre-Cleaning Welch Ave Station tradition and bribing rookies to pick us up on the way to Hilton, and best of all, the time we accidentally left Chelle at Hilton because we all took off before the guy in charge told us we had cleaned it well enough. Oh, and how could I forget Magon somehow managing to pull her hamstring from her inability to walk down the isles?
Another fundraiser that goes down in WS history is refereeing ISU Intramural Ultimate Frisbee. I have no idea if we made much money off of this, but it was adventure for sure. It may be different other places, but at Iowa State, IM Ultimate is pretty bad. In theory this was a chance to share the sport of ultimate with newer players, but in reality it was just a free frawl of kids running around, confident in their IM ultimate skills, and completely ignoring all of the rules to real ultimate. The best part of this fundraiser was that we got to wear highlighter yellow polo shirts and blow whistles (UPA should consider these alterations to observers).
Serving food at ISU concessions is always an interesting fundraising experience. Usually we get to work football or basketball games. We are a pretty good team with customer service and efficiency, but we don't enjoy the grease aspect. One thing I think we can all take away from these is an appreciation for just how unhealthy concession food really is for you (even though we def still eat it every time we work).
Then there are always the smaller jobs like cleaning Dersch's house (thanks Coach D), pimping ourselves out in any way possible just to sell a disc, begging businesses for sponsorships, clicking a link approximately 1 million times, creating accounts on MyEDU that one time to get money, gift wrapping at the Memorial Union during ArtMart, and really just any possible thing we can do just to make a dollar or two. All of these experiences have added to the small bank account that we work to generate each season to be able to play the sport we love so much together.
While money is the basis of reason for all of these endeavors, the financial outcome is rarely the most lucrative aspect. Let's be honest, the bonding that occurs as you are cleaning fake cheese and tiny popcorn crumbs off of the top level of a Coliseum just can't be replicated in any other way. Most teams share sweat, blood, and tears... but the poor club teams share those AND grimy moments attempting to earn money. As much as these fundraisers suck each year, I can always count on a good time because Scorned will rarely allow a dull moment to exist no matter what the situation is. Plus... I would probably do the dirties job on Dirty Jobs if it meant I got to play another season with this team.
Lindsey Gapstur
#2 Woman Scorned
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