To acknowledge the recent success of Rice’s women’s athletic teams, and in honor of "National Girls and Women In Sport Day", Rice Rally Club organized a celebration in the Rice Memorial Center for all students to enjoy. In addition to free food, there were free t-shirts for the first 150 students as well as a raffle for prizes from United Airlines and East-West Tea. Rally Club President and Sport Management senior, Sergio Santamaria ’18, oversaw organizing the event.
“On a general level, I organized it to recognize the incredible success our women's athletics programs have had recently,” said Santamaria. “It was a way for the Rally Club to show how proud we are of our fellow students and the success that they have shown in competition.”
Indeed, Rice’s Women’s athletics programs have performed exceptionally well over the past few years. Some of the many achievements include the basketball team winning the 2017 Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI) tournament, the soccer team winning the 2017 Conference USA Championship, 2015 and 2016 C-USA Championships for the track & field and cross country teams, and the past five C-USA titles for the tennis team.
In addition to recognizing the women’s athletics programs on the field, Santamaria also wanted to increase their presence on campus.
“I also wanted to bring our female student-athletes to the forefront,” Santamaria said. “Hopefully the event will help in bridging the gap in relations between student-athletes and 'regular' students at Rice.”
Multiple female student-athletes were in attendance to mix and mingle with event attendees. Also present at the event were 10 trophies to acknowledge the teams’ on-field exploits.
Event sponsors included East-West Tea, who raffled off five Free East-West Tea drinks and gave all event attendees $1 off their purchase, and United Airlines, who donated ten United Club passes and two round-trip tickets.
Greg Van Kirk, a junior from Arcadia, California, is double-majoring in Sport Management and Economics and minoring in Business.
