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Skidmore Polo Team

Skidmore Polo
Skidmore Polo Logo
Skidmore Polo Logo
Motto: ride fast, kill bitches
State New York
Cities Saratoga
Founded 1978 Skidmore College


The Skidmore Polo Team is a club sport at Skidmore College that plays in the Northeastern Circuit of College polo. Although it is treated as a club within the college, the Team is one of two at Skidmore who compete at a Division I level, the other being golf. Founded in 1978 by Leighton Jordan and Jed Lavitt, the polo team continues to exist today under strong student support, financial assisstance from the Student Government, and donations.




Contents

[edit] History

In 1978 Skidmore was in the middle of making its transition to a new campus. Students became involved in forming the new campus, WSPN radio was established in 1975; basketball, hockey, and lacrosse clubs grew intercollegiate programs; and around that time Jordan and Lavitt helped create the college’s first polo team.

Through the 1980s Skidmore Polo flurished as one of the top sports on campus and friday night games were a standard among students as the "thing to do". Students would come out in herds, get rowdy, have fun, and cheer players along with alumni, Saratogians, and the "standing-room only crowd" in the Van Lennep Riding Center. The games highlighted the skill of the team and the excitement the sport of Polo brought to the small college.

The success of the Polo Team kept building throughout the 1980s, leading the Skidmore Women on to win the National Championship in 1991.

[edit] Struggles

Shortly after their win at Nationals, memebers of the polo team learned that the team would be stripped of its varsity status the following school year. While intention behind the schools decision to change the team to a club status remains controversial, the school cited rising costs as the main reason behind the cut.

Since this time the club has been traveling a rough road. During the mid 1990s the club faced more issues when they were restricted from playing and practicing at the school's Van Lennep Riding Center. Since then the club has boarded their poines year to year at different indoor facilities within the Saratoga area.

[edit] 2006-2007

After affriming themselves as a club for decade, a few years of unseen accounting flaws surfaced in 2006 and Skidmore Polo members returned to school in the fall of 2006 to learn that the club was deeply in debt. The Student Government Association (SGA) threatened to de-charter the club if the debt was not repaid within four years.

At this time, sophmore Kathleen McConkey picked up the position of treasurer to resolve the clubs financials problems. After a year of setting up new goals for the club and evaluating expenses, Kathleen discovered that the SGA book keeping process had led the club, and many other organizations at Skidmore, into debt.

[edit] 2008 and Future

Within the past school year, the team has overcome their financial trouble with a well devoted team. Without such strong commitment from players and coaches to the club, and especially the polo ponies, the club would not have been well off. The year started off with an offer to play, outside, at the Adirondack Polo club in the fall of 2007. A few memebers of the team played in the match benefiting the United Way Foundation. Following the ride in the Adirondacks, the team recieved many new incoming freshmen interested in pursing polo at Skidmore. Annie the pony was retired after many years of service to the club with the donation of Boots by a local polo pro.

The fall of 2007 strengthed the women and mens teams to play against, Michigan State, Cornell, Yale, CSU, and University of Louisville. In the spring of 2008 the teams challenged...