Club sports are great.

Club sports offer wanna-be athletes the opportunity to participate in activities they enjoy. Club sports are organized. Club sports promote teamwork and camaraderie. Club sports keep members off the streets.

Club sports want ink. Or blood.

The phones at the Star Sports office have been ringing off the hook this week. Club presidents are calling to request—sometimes demand—coverage.

Nearly two years ago, then-sports editor Craig Peterson wrote a column on this same subject. His words were accurate then, and since they still apply, I will borrow them now.

Peterson’s Postulate of Student Indifference to NIU Club Sports: “The number of NIU students interested in any one club sport is approximately equal to the number of students participating in the club.”

No one else really cares, and if anyone does, they should go to the games themselves.

When a newspaper informs its readers that club sports exist, that’s a service. When an athlete from a club sport makes it big (as when two baseball club members signed minor league contracts), that’s news. When a club sport plays, that’s usually just recreation.

Admittedly, the Star is probably remiss in ignoring the hockey club’s 11-0-3 record. That has the makings of a good story. Perhaps NIU should have a hockey team in intercollegiate competition, especially if it has a chance to be a winner. Heaven knows this is as close to hockey weather as you can get. It’s not like we should have a surfing team.

But the Star’s major area is covering the regular teams in the athletic department. But even that doesn’t always go right.

Men’s gymnastics coach Chuck Ehrlich called the office Monday to complain his team’s meet was not covered. Decisions were made, priorities were set and his team was given a box score, nothing more. He voiced his opinion and he might have been right, but he would’ve had more of a right to complain if we started covering club sports on a regular basis instead of his team, which is ranked eighth in the nation.

Gymnastics is another sport that no one usually cares about except during the Olympics, but it is a university-sponsored sport and worthy of coverage.

Whether people want to be informed or not, they have a right to know how NIU teams perform. Tax dollars and fees go to pay for the facilities, coaches’ and administrators’ salaries, scholarships and everything else in the athletic department. The students and their parents should know how well “their” teams do.

The club sports belong to the players involved. Very few people attend their games. Friends, yes. Fans, no.

No matter how good a club sport is or how bad a university team is, more people will want to know about the NIU team.

Or at least that’s the way it should be.