NS Basketball Team has a Shot
Monday, September 27th, 2010
After their success last semester, The New School basketball team — the school's first competitive sports team — is back and they’ve upped the stakes by hiring a coach and seeking out a league where they’ll compete with other schools in the area.
NS Basketball Team photo by Oona Kelly
This year, Michael McQuarrie, director of recreation and intramural sports at The New School, is in the process of hiring a coach, Carter Nichols. Nichols came on board to oversee tryouts for the fall on September 3 and has been leading practices once a week since then.
A team of 12 graduate and undergraduate students from all university divisions except Mannes, ranging from ages 18 to 32, comes together twice a week at Chelsea Piers — Sunday afternoons they practice, Tuesday nights they play games in the Chelsea Piers Men’s Division 1 competitive basketball league.
The team’s current roster won’t work out for the long term, though. McQuarrie is working toward The New School’s acceptance into an exclusively undergraduate league, the Hudson Valley Men’s Athletic Conference. He hopes the basketball team will be able to compete next year as a member of HVMAC, which is made up of ten schools in the metropolitan area, including Sarah Lawrence, Pratt, Culinary Institute of America and Cooper Union. The other schools in the league are small, but unlike The New School, they actually have mascots for the most part.
This season, The New School will scrimmage in the HVMAC, playing six to ten exhibition games. After attending a conference, McQuarrie is optimistic that The New School will be accepted into the league next year. Pending the creation of competitive girls leagues, McQuarrie intends to eventually join their sister league, the Hudson Valley Women’s Athletic Conference.
Since the birth of a recreation and intramural sports office in 2008, director Mike McQuarrie has been in charge of developing an athletic program at a school where it would seem most students don’t even know there is one.
“You have to come find us,” McQuarrie said. And although it may seem surprising, with the creation of a few intramural leagues and now the instigation of competitive teams, students are becoming increasingly involved in sports at The New School.
For example, the basketball team was largely an effort of Lang junior Alex Knapp, who was captain and head coach last semester. Now that the school is hiring Nichols, Knapp is assistant coach and retains the role of captain.
Knapp sees the basketball team as a jumping off point for the expansion of The New School’s sports program. This fall a coed cross country team is in the works, but isn’t off the ground yet because of difficulties finding a coach.
Forty students are also on the wait list for the intramural soccer league, whose 100 spots are filled. In response to student interest, McQuarrie is working with students to set up a competitive soccer league starting this spring.
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