The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, August 31, 2022 — 13A
Sports

It was a balmy 
18 degrees and 
windy when I 
remembered 
that I’d prom-
ised my friend 
Hugh that I’d 
go to a lacrosse 
game with him. 
I’m not the best 
at remembering 
things, or keeping promises, and it 
just so happened that I was already 
at the Union studying for a test that I 
had forgotten was the next day. 
There was no good reason for 
me to drop what I was doing to go 
watch lacrosse. I was underdressed 
for the frigid weather. The lacrosse 
field was two miles away, and 
lacrosse was a sport that I’d neither 
seen, nor cared to see, played. But 
I must’ve felt guilty or something 
because I got up and went. 
In almost every way, it should 
have been a miserable experience. 
Michigan got walloped, and I froze 
so badly I couldn’t feel my feet. But 
it was also the most fun I’d had that 
month. Unknowingly, I’d stumbled 
upon the entertaining culture of 
non-revenue sports at Michigan.
When everyone talks about the 
sports culture of Big Ten schools, 
they’re generally referring to foot-
ball and men’s basketball. And for 
good reason, too, because the cul-
ture around these sports in Ann 

Charlie Pappalardo: A case for the sport you’ve never cared about

Arbor is almost as alluring as the 
actual sport itself. 
Don’t get me wrong, Michigan 
loves football, but the love of these 
events isn’t exclusively about the 
game. It’s also about the people 
you experience the game with. It’s 
about the emotion and excitement 
of being emotional and excited with 
thousands of others who share your 
same desires. That culture and that 
feeling is what people think of when 
they hear about so-called Michigan 
sports culture.
The culture of non-revenue 
sports, though, is vastly differ-
ent — but it’s just as entertaining. 
When you move away from foot-
ball, hockey and both basketball 
programs, the crowd sizes decrease 
exponentially. You won’t find thou-
sands of people at the average wres-
tling dual, field hockey game or 
gymnastics meet, but you will find 
incredibly high levels of skill in the 
athletes and obsession in the crowd 
that shows up. 
Watching lacrosse, I found peo-
ple that were obsessed. There were 
maybe 15 people in the student sec-
tion watching the Wolverines play 
Harvard that day, but they made it 
fun. They heckled the nation’s aca-
demic elites in the Crimson to the 
point of outrage, and they screamed 
at the referees’ apparent biases. 
And — most importantly — they 
explained everything I could ever 

want to know about the sport in 
excruciating detail. They told me 
about the team’s roster, its stars, 
their shortcomings and the recur-
ring storylines. I was hooked, not 
solely by the sport but by the cul-
ture. 
The culture around non-revenue 
sports is unique. It’s small, rabid 
and, above all else, fun. The people 
in the stands really care and being 
around them makes you care, too.
At Michigan, you’ll find every 
sport you’ve ever thought about. 
If you played it in high school or if 
you’ve seen it on TV, there’s prob-
ably a team that plays it in Ann 
Arbor — and they also probably do 
it well. You’ll see Olympians and 
national champions performing in 
front of mostly empty venues, but 
that doesn’t make the experience 
any less fun. 
These sports and the cultures 
that surround them are magnetic. 
The athletes perform at ridiculously 
high levels, and the fans are always 
losing their marbles, regardless 
of whether there’s 10 of them or 
108,000. 
My best advice is that you don’t 
have to fully understand something 
to enjoy it. So if a friend ever asks you 
to go watch a sport in the 18-degree 
cold that you couldn’t have cared 
less about before, go watch it.
I have the feeling your opinion on 
the sport might change. 

CHARLIE 
PAPPALARDO

Five non-revenue sports to check out

IAN PAYNE
Daily Sports Writer

KATE HUA/Daily 

It’s well known that football 
runs the Michigan sports scene, 
but Ann Arbor is home to many 
other successful athletic pro-
grams.
The University is one of the 
top athletics institutions in the 
country. The Wolverines are a 
historic titan of the college foot-
ball world and have remained 
relevant in both men’s basket-
ball and hockey for decades. 
Those programs carry signifi-
cant popularity, and their suc-
cess gains plenty of publicity.
But Michigan’s athletic stat-
ute extends past those three to 
the two dozen other exciting 
varsity teams on campus defeat-
ing rivals, making tournaments 
and winning titles. 
And the best part: Students 
can watch these teams for free.
The Wolverines won 13 Big 
Ten titles last year, 11 of which 
were in non-revenue sports. 
While it’s easy to overlook 

some of the smaller programs 
and instead focus on football 
and basketball, the non-rev-
enue sports at Michigan are 
an intriguing entertainment 
option. Here are five exciting 
sports to check out this year on 
campus.

Volleyball
The environment at a vol-
leyball game alone is worth the 
trip — and that makes it a great 
place to start. It has one of the 
liveliest sporting atmospheres 
on campus, with passionate fans 
and the talented volleyball band 
on the sidelines.
“I remember against Michi-
gan State at the Crisler Center 
after losing the first set,” Engi-
neering 
sophomore 
Nicho-
las Debelak said. “(Michigan) 
bouncing back … (and) storm-
ing ahead and the crowd danc-
ing along. (They won) the game 
three sets to one.”
Most volleyball home games 
are played in Cliff Keen Arena, 
a short 15 minute walk from the 
Diag. But some matches take 
place at Crisler Center — and 

it makes for a next-level atmo-
sphere.

Women’s soccer
Last season, the women’s 
soccer team won its third Big 
Ten Tournament, its first since 
1999. After finishing the sea-
son ranked No. 7 nationally, 
the Wolverines found momen-
tum in the conference tourna-
ment and rode it all the way to 
the quarterfinals of the NCAA 
Tournament. 
“When there’s a full student 
section, the crowd can be just 
as electric as some of the bigger 
sports, and there’s a lot of fun 
chants,” Education junior Siob-
han Stemme said. “The section 
has a great location right on the 
sideline.”
The team makes for an excit-
ing viewing experience at the 
University of Michigan Soccer 
Stadium for soccer diehards and 
sports fans alike.

Gymnastics
The 
women’s 
gymnastics 
team is Michigan’s most recent 
national champion, taking home 

the hardware in 2021. Along 
with the men’s team, the Wol-
verines also won the Big Ten 
regular season and conference 
titles in 2022, and both teams 
made deep runs in the NCAA 
Tournament. 
With the elite skill level the 
Michigan gymnasts possess, 
every meet is a must-watch 
event.
“There’s definitely a lot of 
energy,” LSA senior Ruby Mur-
ton said. “There’s moments 
when one of the athletes is on 
the beam, and the team needs 
a hit routine. The feeling when 
they stick their landing is 
incredible.” 
The women’s team hosts its 
meets at Crisler Center, draw-
ing large and energetic — some-
times even sell-out — crowds. 
Meanwhile, the men’s team 
makes its home at Cliff Keen 
Arena. With both squads look-
ing to run back similar triumph 
next season, both should make 
for electric atmospheres.

Wrestling
Coming off a Big Ten Cham-

pionship and runner-up finish 
in the NCAA Wrestling Cham-
pionships, the wrestling team is 
an exciting group to watch. After 
falling just short of the national 
championship — and with mul-
tiple elite veterans graduating 
— the team will enter the season 
with something to prove. 
Redshirt 
junior 
Cameron 
Amine, redshirt senior Will 
Lewan, fifth-year senior Mason 
Parris and redshirt sophomore 
Dylan Ragusin are names worth 
seeing at Crisler Center and Cliff 
Keen Arena. 

Field Hockey
Finally, a sleeper sport that 
many students — myself includ-
ed — may have never even heard 
of before college: field hockey. 
While the sport is not as wide-
ly known, field hockey makes 
for an entertaining and exhila-
rating viewing experience that 
is pretty easy to pick up due to 
the similarities it shares with 
more widely known sports such 
as ice hockey and soccer. But 
more importantly, Michigan’s 
team makes the sport engaging 

for fans. 
Ending 
the 
2021 
season 
ranked third in the country, the 
Wolverines are one of the coun-
try’s top contenders. And being 
in the Big Ten — which occupied 
the top six spots in the 2021 end-
of-season rankings — Michi-
gan routinely plays high-stakes 
games against elite competi-
tion. During its home games at 
Phyllis Ocker Field, located just 
south of Schembechler Hall, 
those matchups can turn into 
the kind of grudge matches that 
make for top-tier sports memo-
ries.
“(The games) were really 
entertaining,” Stemme said. “It 
was a sport I’d never watched 
before. I found it pretty easy 
to follow, and the game moves 
pretty quickly.”

With these — and many more 
successful non-revenue varsity 
programs in Ann Arbor — there 
are plenty of sports for passion-
ate fans.
And remember: All of these 
can be watched for free.

JENNA HICKEY/Daily 

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily 

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily 

KATE HUA/Daily 

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily 

