For Dublin University Central Athletics Club (DUCAC), the governing body of sport in Trinity, the primary responsibility is controlling the admin of all of Trinity’s sports clubs. But the DUCAC responsibility that commonly steals the headlines – more often when things go wrong rather than right – is the unenviable task of attempting to meet each unique need and aspiration of all Trinity’s 48 sports clubs.
Satisfying and appeasing the worries of Trinity’s sports clubs in a time of increasing budget cuts is a stress that the majority of students would rather not add to their pile of existing academic and personal obligations, but Monty Badger is not one of them. Badger, a second-year history student, current Secretary of DU Boat Club (DUBC) and apparent glutton for punishment, is anxious to tackle the issue head on after his election as Vice-Chair of DUCAC at its AGM.
Having sat on the DUBC committee last year as a novice representative, Badger acquired experience of sitting on a committee and was involved in an extremely successful year for the club, which saw the winning of the University Championships, the National Championships, and saw the novice crew go unbeaten in England. And it’s this success that Badger in part attributes to inspiring him to branch out from DUBC, get involved with DUCAC and, as a result, all of Trinity’s clubs.
“I really wanted to represent the boat club on the committee”, he tells The University Times, continuing: “Essentially I have an interest in all clubs in Trinity so I want to feel that I can help many other clubs, rather than just my own in the boat club.”
But what exactly does Badger want to bring to the DUCAC table?
“For sport in Trinity I would like it to be affordable, accessible and supportive to the athlete. I know that many budgets were cut very significantly this year. The boat club budget, for instance, was almost halved. And the trouble with that is it makes sport too expensive for the athlete, and when I think sport becomes inaccessible and unaffordable well then you just don’t have the same amount of participation.”
The conversation inevitably leads from here on to DUCAC funding and finances and, while understandably Badger hasn’t yet had time to study the accounts, he is adamant that his focus is on making sport cheaper for the students. I put to him, though, that in the midst of a national higher-education funding crisis if the money simply isn’t there, then there is not much he can do about it.
Badger responds: “Well for instance, the running of DUCAC’s own funds could be better assigned if it could make sport cheaper for the student.”
But how he can better assign DUCAC funds, is something Badger says he won’t know until he gets a chance to analyse the accounts and untangle the figures but he assures that the “first thing I am looking forward to looking into, is why was the budget cut”.
With the boat club holding a monopoly of sorts over DUCAC this year – three out of five of DUCAC’s executive officers are members of DUBC – Badger feels it important to emphasise that there will be support for smaller clubs.
“I have an interest not only in helping and supporting the older clubs in Trinity, but also developing the new and developing clubs. There are many clubs in Trinity, much smaller smaller clubs in Trinity, like say the Wind and Wake or the Croquet Club, which would very much benefit from help from DUCAC to get up and running. And I think you can achieve so much in a small club and have a very different feel from a big club which I think is very important to the student.”
Yet, when it comes to the Trinity Sport “focus sports” policy, Badger agrees with the policy and sees the importance in Trinity protecting and supporting the older and bigger clubs, which according to Badger “could be seen as vulnerable”.
DUCAC’s new Chairman, Donagh McDonagh, successfully ran his campaign on the idea that DUCAC was not broken and didn’t need fixing, but rather fine tuning to better support clubs. Badger agrees, stating that DUCAC just needed to “tweak [their efforts] in the right direction” and put a “greater focus on the clubs and the athlete” to have a successful year.
Badger also found it important to defend the democratic process of DUCAC after a Trinity News piece had described the DUCAC election result as arising from a group of several clubs, including DUBC, organising an “electoral collusion”.
“I feel the committee is quite representative of many of the clubs”, he said in response.
“We have representation from Harriers, Wind and Wake, Women’s Rugby, Sailing, Squash and Sub Aqua all quite small clubs. So I feel that is quite positive. I felt that the election itself was democratic. I know that there was stories of controversy, but I feel that it was a completely democratic election and you can’t lambaste that. And also I suppose it shows the commitment of athletes to their clubs in who showed up.”
