When people think of college one of the first things to pop in to most minds is college sports. This is especially true for my family and me.
Whenever we gathered we made it a purpose to find a college game to watch. While ETSU is no Bama, the Bucs are my pride when I talk to my new friends here in Sweden.
I talk of the games I have covered, of the championship teams I have met, and even the tough losses I have witnessed.
I take immense pride in not only my school and my team but in the work I have done for them in this newspaper.
So it came as quite a surprise when I got to Karlstad and found that college sports doesn’t cross the ocean.
I could not believe that a university of over 12,000 students did not have a single sports team. They didn’t even have a school mascot.
This is unheard of in America. Even the smallest schools field some sort of team.
I described this to my roommate, a German from a university of less than 4,000 students. He said that there weren’t sports anywhere he knew of and it was an American thing.
There went my plan to cover the local university team and write articles about them.
It seems to me as I spend more time here that the local sports team takes the place of a college team for those who attend school.
But we obviously have local teams on top of our college team.
Many of you may have been to a Johnson City Cardinals game or those of you who are transplants like me may have gone to a Nashville Sounds game.
However, this is on top of the college teams that are in the area.
Over here on this side of the Atlantic, they just have local teams.
Karlstad University also has a lacking of intramural sports, and by lacking I mean none.
At the start of my semester, I paid a fee to play ball sports with a student exercise company.
They have a schedule of sports for each day and I can choose to go or not, and if I don’t my team won’t suffer from my absence.
This is because we have no concrete team or a league or standings or anything. We get together and play whatever sport is happening that day.
I love this and wish that it was like this at ETSU, a concrete time each week when pickup games of various sports are played put on by the CPA.
That way, students might try and begin to love sports that they have never played before, like floorball.
I have many months to go here in Karlstad and each week brings new experiences and new stories for me to tell. I can’t wait to write again.
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