<p>In general, are club sports for people without experience in the sport? I read in some viewbook (I think Harvard) that a guy joined the crew club team and only practised like 3 times a month, with no prior experience. Is this what club sports are?</p>
<p>you are making a huge sweeping generalization. some people have sports experience and some don't.</p>
<p>I started club rugby at college this year without any prior experience. We just placed 3rd in the DIII Nationals a few weeks ago :) But we practiced slightly more often than 3 times a month...</p>
<p>I think there are two different sort of club sports.
Some sports like rugby and ultimate frisbee are not administered by the NCAA but organized as a club sport, so the club level is actually varsity.
In other sports the club level is for students who don't want to (or cannot) go varsity - but even there the level of intensity ranges from purely recreational to highly competitive.</p>
<p>I would guess that most clubs are open to newbies, but there might be exceptions.</p>
<p>Depends on the school -- a DI school with a huge athletic program will probably have more students interested in sports who can't make the varsity team, and these students will want to play club sports. At Maryland, many club sports practice 3-4 times per week and if you don't have previous experience with the sport you're going to be pretty behind.</p>
<p>I started in club rugby as a freshman at college with no experience with it at all (but lots of other sports experience). It was no problem to learn, with practices three nights a week about 4-5 months of the school year. 3 years later I am captain of the team.
This at a DI school, but rugby is stil a slightly uncommon sport, especially in the Midwest, so we take nearly anyone who wants to play. Enthusiasm is the main thing needed for starting a new sport later in your life.</p>
<p>rugby is not a popular sport in the US among youth (or at all), and therefore it is easier to access at the Club level in college. Other sports will take people with no experience as well, such as Crew and Sailing, most likely they have "novice" teams who compete against other "novice" teams.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you have never played soccer or baseball, I don't think you are going to make a team, b/c teams like that will probably be full of people who played varsity in high school.</p>
<p>You definitely need experience to play club ice hockey.</p>