UCSB Recreational Sports “Education through Recreation or the Power of Play” is our mantra and teaches life skills such as competitive achievement, teamwork, leadership, communication, integrity, self-control and social responsibility. "The goal of the Recreational Sports program is to inspire growth of the mind, body and spirit through fitness, community and fair play." Rec Sports offers diverse opportunities to foster a healthy lifestyle. With highly competitive Sport Clubs, fun Intramural Sports, and heart racing outdoor Adventure Programs, Rec Sports is exactly Where Gauchos Play.
Fun & Fitness Festival	At the Rec Sports Fun and Fitness Festival you can learn all about Intramural Sports, Sport Clubs, Adventure Programs, Leisure Review, Athletics, and much more! Over 5,000 students and community members attend the festival each year to meet new people, watch student performances and learn about Recreational Sports opportunities. Students interested in participating in any of our programs don't want to miss out on this event! Fun Fitness Festival 2011 Pictures Fun Fitness Festival 2010 Video
Adventure Program- First Year Outdoor Adventure Have you ever wanted to explore the cracks and crevices of the Santa Barbara Mountains or venture the Santa Barbara coast in a kayak? If so, UC Santa Barbara’s First Year Outdoor Adventure Programs (FYOA) has just the activities for you! FYOA gives incoming students the opportunities to meet other first year students while discovering the cosmic wonders of nature. We offer four different outdoor programs for first year students to take part in: Multi-Sport Adventure, Climbing and Canyoneering Adventure, Backpacking Adventure, and Colorado Canoe Adventure. Each of these activities lasts about one week and are held prior to first year students’ move-in to the residence halls and UCSB’s week of welcome. Learn more about Adventure Programs
Sport Club National Championships Alpine 2001. 2003. 2004 Cycling 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 2000 Sailing 2003 Surfing 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2005, 2008 Triathlon 1987, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996 Men's Lacrosse 2004, 2005 Men's Rowing 1989 Men's Soccer 2003, 2004, 2007 Men's Ultimate 1988, 1989, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1998 Women's Rowing 1989, 1990, 1991 Women's Soccer 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Women's Ultimate 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991 Women's Water Polo 1985, 1987, 1989	Sport Clubs With 22 teams, over 800 student-athletes, and 61 National Championships, the UCSB Sport Club program has proven itself to be one of the most successful programs in the nation. Our teams compete each year against many of the nation’s top universities. Because there are no scholarships awarded for team participation, these athletes sweat it out for the love of the game and the competitive achievement that inevitably comes along with it. Contacts General FAQ Sport Club Teams
Intramural Sports With 18 different sports and over 18,000 participants a year, UCSB Intramural Sports continue to be the most popular program on campus. With a vast variety of sports and leagues, UCSB students get the chance to stay fit, compete for a championship, and make friendships that will last a lifetime. There is a place for everyone, as no experience is needed to play. So whether you’re a star athlete looking for some daily competition, or you’re a newcomer to the sport in search of a good time, come sign-up for an IM team and get in the game! Intramural Sports Intramural FAQ
Employment Opportunities In addition to providing fun, fitness, and friendship for our participants, our programs are used as a vehicle for student development. Our programs encourage teamwork, leadership, and social responsibility. Student employees first hand experience with their development of management, organization, and leadership skills. When included as part of an individual’s general educational experience, these skills will ultimately prepare students for their future in our diverse society. With this philosophy in mind, our goal is to empower 100% of students at UCSB toward a healthy lifestyle by participating in our programs. Interest, not skill is the only prerequisite for participation. Available Positions Internships Meet the Rec Sports Staff

By Ben Chodos

The UCSB club men’s rugby team beat Oregon State University and Stanford University this weekend at Harder Stadium to win their regional Sweet 16 Tournament and advance to the Final Four.

UCSB opened their postseason against the Beavers Saturday night.  After a competitive first half, the Gauchos blew the game open in the second half and cruised to a 41-24 victory.

Sunday night’s game against Stanford proved to be more of a challenge for top seeded UCSB.  The Cardinals jumped to a 17-0 lead, which they held well into the second half.  The Gauchos were not ready for their dream season to end, and responded by scoring the first of four tries in seven minutes.  UCSB was relentless on both offense and defense until the final whistle which marked a 33-17 victory and a trip to the final four.

“No one was ready to go home,” junior prop Stephan Salimi said about the Gaucho’s remarkable comeback.  “We were all playing for each other, and no one quit.  Our team has a lot of heart.”

The Gauchos (#3) will play Bowling Green, the top seed in the country, in the Division I national semifinals at Stanford University on May 13.

By Allie Browne

This past weekend, UCSB club cycling competed in the Conference Championships in Hollister and Morgan Hill, with two cyclists qualifying for nationals next week.

The Gauchos have a small A-team, meaning each rider had to qualify individually: third year mathematics major Eric Hartsuyker and fourth year political science major Dan Katz accumulated the required amount of points in races during the past ten weeks.  In the 67-mile race at Hollister, Hartsuyker crossed the finish line with the lead group, but Katz crashed out at mile 27 and was taken to the emergency room to remove rocks from his arm and to be stitched up.  In the hour-long crit race at Morgan Hill, Hartsuyker was exhausted from the previous day’s race, while Katz won the sprint when four riders were up the road, taking fifth place.

Nationals will be held May 6^th-8^th in Madison, Wisconsin.

By Ben Chodos 

UCSB’s men’s lacrosse will end regular season play in the OC against Chapman University this Saturday night at 7 PM.  The Gauchos and the Panthers are both unbeaten in Southwestern Lacrosse Conference North Division play and are tied for first place.

The game is designated as senior day, and the handful of fourth years on the team are excited to be honored in against the team that has become their main rival.

Senior midfielder Ethan Mantel, a Film and Media Studies major, described the mindset of the team going into a Chapman game.

“UCSB and Champan have consistently been the most competitive teams in our league,” Mantel said.  “I think that has been the real root of our rivalry.  There always seems to be a mutual understanding that each team is going to have to play their hardest to win.”

The game also has significant postseason implications, as Mantel explains.

“A win against Chapman would mean a lot for our division playoffs, and would mean a great deal for us as a contender to be picked for the national tournament.”

Chapman (4) and UCSB (13) are both among the top ranked teams in the country.  The winner of Saturday night’s game will clinch the top seed in the SLC Tournament.  But the game will also serve as an indication for how far the Gauchos have progressed this season.

“It would be an enormous boost for our morale,” Mantel said.  “And an amazing final game for our season to lead us into the playoffs.”

By Ben Chodos

UCSB club women’s lacrosse has added another item to their impressive résumé this season by finishing third in the Western Women’s Lacrosse League Championship Tournament.  The Gauchos opened tournament play with a convincing 21-14 win against Berkley.  The Gauchos then suffered a heartbreaking 13-12 loss to Santa Clara in the semifinals.  They responded the next day with 15-11 victory over Cal Poly in the third place game.  With the weekend’s impressive performance, the team has earned an at-large bid into the Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse Associates National Championship on the weekend of May 4^th in Scottsdale, Arizona.

By Ben Chodos

            The UCSB Gauchos burst onto the Division I scene in their first year playing at the highest level of men’s collegiate club volleyball. The team finished their impressive season with a 28-7 overall record and the ninth overall national ranking. 

            Team captain Daniel Samarin, a third year Mechanical Engineering major, has been with the team every year of his UCSB career and is excited about the team’s progress during this time.

            “This is ten times better than the last two years when we were not even in Division I,” Samarin said.

            Even though Samarin is pleasantly surprised with the team’s excellent season, he feels that their potential has not fully been tapped.

            “We wanted to win the whole thing,” Samarin said.  “We didn’t get the job done on day three of bracket play [at nationals].”

            The team will only lose one senior next year, giving Samarin a reason to have the highest expectations for the 2012 season.

            “We want to win it all,” he said.

For the past 50 years, Recreational Sports has strived to find novel ways to benefit the student. Take for example the Jack Canfield Student Medical Emergency Relief Fund (SMERF), which started in part after a Recreational Sports employee (Ina Christensen) died in 1991 from leukemia since she was unable to pay for medical care. Shortly after, friends and family pitched in to form a fund that would help serve to help students who needed help paying for their medical bills in emergency situations. SMERF was formally started in 2005 by Recreational Sports in attempt to find a way to sustain the money received as well as form a committee that would be in charge of determining how best the money should be used. Three of the founders of SMERF are Ashley Auld, Shaun Hicks and Janet Sevilla, each was an exceptional student leader at Recreational Sports.

Ashley Auld enrolled in UCSB in 2002 and graduated in 2006. During this time, Ashley became very involved in Recreational Sports and by her junior year emerged as one of the student leaders. It was only natural for Ashley to be attracted to Recreational Sports as a part-time job opportunity since she played soccer since she was very young and was an Exercise Sports Studies major. Little did she know that starting as a gym field supervisor her sophomore year would mark the beginning of one of the most rewarding experiences of her life. She quickly was promoted to outdoor soccer coordinator and later to night supervisor- a position that looks over the gym field supervisors. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, her junior year she became the RecSports representative on the Events Center governing board, which voted on how the Events Center should be used and scheduled. She proceeded to become a chairman of the board her senior year. Due to her obvious commitment toward RecSports and her strong capacity for leadership, Paul Lee, the director of RecSports approached her in her senior year in regards to starting a new project: the SMERF.

Ashley was immediately attracted to the idea behind SMERF as she strongly felt that having a huge medical fee should not deter one from being able to get a degree. One of Ashley’s main responsibilities was figuring out how to make the SMERF appealing to UCSB students so that they would vote for the measure to pass in the annual spring elections. Ashley, as well as her two fellow student co-founders, Shaun Hicks and Janet Sevilla struggled to come up with an amount that would be large enough so that it would actually be helpful but not too large that it would deter the students from voting for the measure. In the end, 89 cents per quarter was the decided amount and the measure passed. This allowed for around 50,000 dollars annually to be raised for the students- an amount that would be able to accumulate sufficient interest as well as benefit a maximum amount of people per quarter.

Ashley happily served the SMERF committee her senior year, which met once a week in order to hear out students that wished to obtain money from the SMERF and to deliberate to decide who it should be given to. It was crucial to only give money to those that would truly appreciate it and who understood how it will help them and that they would need to pay back the fees eventually. Being able to help so many students with their medical bills was an uplifting and truly rewarding experience for Ashley. She says that one of the best parts of working on the SMERF was the fact that she felt like she was, “working on something that I knew would have a lasting impact on the university. People would continue to talk about it and benefit from it in the future, even after we were gone.” SMERF continues to help students struggling to pay their medical bills today, and so Ashley’s legacy lives on. It is unbelievably satisfying to Ashley as a part of the Recreational Sports team that helped put the SMERF into place “to feel like we were making an impact on the school.”

Ashley was part of the founding team for the SMERF and dedicated a lot of time and passion into ensuring the project’s success, as with all the projects that she undertook as an employee at RecSports. Therefore, at this year’s 5^th Annual Hall of Fame, Ashley Auld, along with her two fellow founders, Shaun Hicks and Janet Sevilla, will be presented with the Pioneer Award for their spectacular hard work.

Ashley continues to stay in contact with a lot of the people that she worked with at RecSports and continues to live by the principles that she learned at RecSports. For example, she believes that giving back and helping others is invaluable, and only one of the many ways that she continues to do so is by participating in a marathon recently that raised money for the leukemia/lymphoma society. She also still strongly believes in finding time for recreation and play, even though it’s harder to do so after graduation. One outlet she has for recreation is to ref girl’s soccer, which she manages to squeeze in-between balancing working as a marketing support representative for a wireless internet company, Clear and getting her master’s degree in sports management at the University of the Pacific.

Shaun Hicks, UCSB graduate 2006 and fellow founding member of the SMERF, says that it was “kinda a funny story” of how he came to work at RecSports. After transferring to UCSB his Junior year from Boston College, Shaun was shooting some hoops at the Recreational Center before school one day when he instigated an altercation with a guy he was playing against. He remembers an older, Asian gentlemen walking up to him and telling him the importance of having fun and play and the belief that “everyone’s a winner.” This gentleman happened to be Paul Lee, the head director of RecSports, who ended up offering Shaun a job. Shaun began working at RecSports at a beginning level position and soon became more involved in working on the Special Projects team and miscellaneous marketing jobs. After half a year of working closely with Paul, Paul mentioned to Shaun his ideas regarding the SMERF and what it would take for it to come to place.

Shaun began working on the project that he felt was a great idea. He headed putting together the committee for SMERF and all of the background research that comes with putting a measure on the ballot and getting a referendum to pass. He remembers the campaigning time before the elections to be one of his favorite parts of working for SMERF. He fondly described how the months preceding the elections seemed like a SMERF frenzy and that the whole office lived breathed and dreamt SMERF. Along with the RecSports office, Shaun approached all of the student body organizations on campus to align with their teams so that every voting body and party would support SMERF. In addition to flyers, buttons, and shirts, Shaun also put on an awareness concert in the RecCen- all to raise awareness for the campaign. His single fondest memory at UCSB was finding out that the measure passed with over 80% of the voting student body’s consent- a percentage far higher than any other referendum that year. Knowing that so many people supported something that he and RecSports were so passionate about was a truly uplifting moment for Shaun.

RecSports taught Shaun that he is the agent of his own happiness and change- that he can achieve anything that he believes that he can- which helped him be the youngest graduating member of his business program at UCLA a couple of years after graduating UCSB. He also continues to give back regularly- he finds community service so valuable that he even included necessary volunteer work to be apart of his requirements per quarter at his current job. He also was part of the team that put together Toastmasters, which helps people become more comfortable with public speaking. He now works as the formal PR officer and a lot of his time to that. The spirit to give back and to stay motivated that was ignited in him from working at RecSports continues to live in him today.

The third founder of SMERF honored this year is Janet Sevilla. Janet attended UCSB from 2002-2006, and was a third year at the same time as Shaun and Ashley, and was also a leader at RecSports. She came to be involved with RecSports her sophomore year as a member of the sports club marketing team. She laughs as she remembers that she “wore a lot of hats at RecSports,” as she also soon became a part of the office staff and a gym field, soon progressing to a night supervisor, as well as being on the RecSports governing board, and of course, SMERF. She remembers how SMERF simply started as an idea tossed around in Paul Lee’s office and then actually watching it turn into a huge project, all in a few short months.

Janet loved watching SMERF during her time at UCSB and loves the fact that it still continues to progress and continues to help students with serious medical problems. She fondly remembers the planning process and how they had to present to all of the student groups on campus, telling them why they should support SMERF. School is already expensive as it is and a medical financial burden should not prevent someone from finishing school- this fundamental principle behind the idea of SMERF is what ultimately sold 80% of the student body on voting for the initiative to pass and what lead to the beginning of the SMERF.

Today, Janet continues to live by RecSports philosophies, especially one of Paul’s sayings, his acronym for fear which he insists stands for “false expectations about reality.” This saying helped Janet persevere through some tough times at UCSB- being kicked out of the school for having too many units, then finally being able to convince the Dean that she should be able to graduate with her double major and minor. This saying continues to help her today with any issues she comes to face. She currently works with the LA Galaxy as the community development coordinator, which helps bring programming to children and helps raise awareness in the community about recreation and soccer especially. Thus, one can see how philanthropy is still a huge part of Janet’s life.

It is no surprise that these three individuals who continue to give back to their community today were the founding members of SMERF, each being a leader of RecSports while they attended UCSB. We are so happy to be able to award them with the Pioneer Award at the 5^th annual Hall of Fame, this April 30^th and so proud to call these astounding individuals gauchos!

By Allie Browne

 Men’s B-League Outdoor Soccer kicked off the Intramural Sport season this past Tuesday afternoon, ready to put away their umbrellas and enjoy the sunshine of Spring Quarter. 

Sporting a brand-new pair of bright pink cleats, third year Mechanical Engineering major Stephen Potter said that he has played for over a year, just for fun. 

“I used to play when I was younger,” Potter said.  “I ran cross country and track in high school, but my friends and I like to mess around with the ball every now and then.” 

Unfortunately, Potter’s Wolf Pack suffered a tough 2-1 loss to Team Carrillo in their opening game. 

Super Smash Bros leveled up in the standings with a 4-2 victory over Pink Crustaegans and Good Vibrations, while Tiger Knee walked away with an easy win due to an Indy Team forfeit. 

Tiger Blood FC was inspired by another Charlie Sheen slogan and took “winning” to a whole new level with an impressive 8-0 victory over Angry Men. 

Fourth year Bernardo Silva of Tiger Blood FC participates in many other Intramural Soccer leagues, but says Men’s B is just for fun.  “We have a Men’s A team too,” Silva said.  “We’ve played Men’s B three or four times, just for more playing time.” 

Even though they’re used to playing at a higher level, they still don’t walk away with easy wins each week.  When asked how many Men’s B championships he has under his belt, Silva responded, “Not very many. We’ve even lost in PK’s a few times.” 

The mixture of high enthusiasm and moderate speed of play makes for a fun, relaxed environment, but one with a competitive spirit that keeps participants coming back each quarter. 

Outdoor Soccer Schedule

Outdoor Soccer Standings

By Ben Chodos

           The UCSB men’s club lacrosse team is gearing up for an important division battle with the UCLA Bruins this Saturday at UCSB at 2PM.

            UCSB has been off to a hot start in Southwestern Lacrosse Conference (SLC) North Division play, going 2-0, putting them in tie for first place with Chapman University. The Gauchos are 7-4 overall this season, and a win Saturday afternoon would all but guarantee them a spot in the SLC Playoffs, set to start on April 30.

            The Bruins have enjoyed moderate success this season, going 1-1 in conference play, and 6-4 overall. They will be poised to seize any chance the Gauchos give them to improve their chances to sneak into the playoffs.

            UCSB head coach Lane Jaffe is focused on preparing his team to limit the amount of opportunities his team allows opponents. Although the Gauchos have scored more goals than any other team in their division, they have also allowed the most goals against.

            “We need to put teams away when given the chance,” Jaffe said. “We have played good quarters, but have yet to play our best lacrosse for a full 60 minutes.”

            Despite defensive lapses, Jaffe is pleased with the season so far.

            “I believe our results are right on par with our season expectations, he said. “All of our losses have come from teams ranked higher than us, and two of those losses were by a goal. We are a young team and will continue to get better with experience.”

            With youthful energy and a high-powered offense, Jaffe is excited about the rest of the season and is looking to focus on one game at a time.

            “Our goals are to win the rest of our league games and make it to the national tournament,” Jaffe said. “Once there, anything can happen.”