By Andre Alverez
College athletics is one of the most influential factors to a colleges’ popularity and its culture. Athletics has proven to be a driving force for almost all college campuses in the country as many students can relate.
As of September 3, the Simpson RedHawks welcomed to the school many new sports to the athletic program. The university will be making their debut in the sport’s bass fishing, men’s volleyball, women’s wrestling, men and women’s swimming and track and field.
Simpson University in the small city of Redding, California has made a splash not just in their athletics program, but they have made a big splash this year with their athletics and for the NAIA for the years to come.
As a result of the new sports coming in, there is an increase in enrollment with the addition of the five sports in the Simpson RedHawks athletic program. With the new sports, the university is the host to the largest student enrollment in years, resulting in crowded dorm rooms and max capacity size classrooms.
In addition to the new sports to the university, these new sports have doubled the number of sports Simpson athletics has to offer, bringing an exciting, packe sports culture to the university.
As apart of bringing in these major new athletics to Simpson, Connor Sutton, Sports Information Director, embraces the additions of these sports as “ big add. When you talk about track and cross country, we get events in that aspect for both the fall and springtime. Swimming and diving give us a little bit of a different taste that we don’t typically see in our conference, In women’s wrestling, we are one of the few NAIA women's wrestling teams in the nation. In addition, men’s volleyball is one of the fastest-growing sports in the nation. In the next year, there will be a conference for men’s volleyball.”
Simpson University has solidified and embraced their school culture as being a very influential and prominent Christain school in the state of California. The school has embraced and spread their culture of religious faith through its students and community. But now to go hand in hand with the culture of engaging religious faith to the campus, the new sports will now add another aspect of culture, excitement and comradery while engaging the principles and working with the faith of the school.
Culture is a significant result of the new sport additions. There is even much excitement form many of the athletes that have been recruited to play these new sports. One of which is swimmer Thomas Higdon who says that, “ I think Simpson adding swimming and other sports was a great step in the right direction. I think a culture that is built on the shoulders of competitive athletes is one that breeds success both academically and athletically and personally I think swimmers are some of the most competitive athletes you'll find.”
Simpson has made an impact on the college athletics in California in terms of its success with the sports it’s had for its history. Now with the addition of these new sports, Simpson looks to make a larger splash, not just in the sports world, but expose people to the school’s popularity, diversity, and dynamic as a whole.
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