School-based sports clubs is another unique avenue for students to get invovled in school sports. I say unique because not every school club is the same. Some schools recognize their clubs and even give some sort of an incentive for members, while some don’t, becoming the reason for its existence. I know some parents decided to form clubs because they don’t get recognized by their school, making pains to point out that they are a club of this school and not an official representative when they join tournaments.

So for me, what Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma is doing is unique. Knowing that as of now, it can’t open up scholarships in majority of the sports that is included in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc., it has instead encouraged students and parents to form clubs.

It is also encouraging the students--from elementary up to college--to join the clubs, so they won’t spend majority of their down time hooked on gadgets or doing unproductive things.

For me, it’s a unique approach, one that should be covered by other schools that don’t have a full varsity.

This way, SWU-Phinma can pick up from its pool of club members school representatives in sports which they don’t have varsity. Among the clubs that will be started this year in SWU is football and I hope, when the Cesafi season comes along, SWU will have a representative in high school and college football.

Here’s something you may not know, SWU won the last Cebu Amateur Athletic Association title in 2000, before the league became the Cesafi due to an off-the-court fight in basketball.

It was controversial too as there was an attempt to bar Ref Cuaresma, who was then a member of the national Under 19 team, from starting for SWU in the finals. They won, but a year later, there was no longer an SWU football team.

Perhaps we will see the return of the kicking Cobras in the field via school clubs? I know the school is fielding teams in the younger age groups, having a college team would give the members of these age groups something to look forward to.

Having school clubs also dispel the notion that college sports is only for varsity members as SWU is encouraging students to join not only for the chance to represent the school in competitions but to be active.

So, I hope this year’s school club experiment will be a huge success and of course, I hope it leads to the school opening up varsity slots for the deserving ones.