RIPON, Wis. – Ripon College has announced it will offer cycling as a team sport beginning with competition in mountain biking next fall.
The Red Hawk cycling team will compete at the Division 2 level as a member of the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference against colleges and universities from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio.
Ripon is the first college in Wisconsin to offer cycling as an officially sanctioned part of its athletic program and is only one of several throughout the country. Most schools which offer cycling at the collegiate level do so as a club sport organized by students, according to Athletic Director Bob Gillespie. The Ripon cycling team will receive the full support of the college’s athletic department and have a paid coach, Gillespie said.
Ripon has named Ric Damm as its first cycling coach. A competitive amateur cyclist, Damm brings more than 10 years of racing experience to the position. Since 1997, he regularly has competed in the Wisconsin Off Road Series (WORS), the largest statewide mountain bike race series in the United States. He continues to compete at the second tier level of WORS, finishing as high as seventh overall at Iola Winter Sports Park in September. Damm has placed among the top 80 of the more than 1,600 finishers in each of the last four Chequamegon Fat Tire 40 mountain bike races. He finished 36th among all male competitors in the event in 2006.
Damm also competes as a Category 4 road cyclist in Wisconsin Cycling Association (WCA) events and at the Category 3 level in WCA cyclocross races. He is a member of the International Mountain Bicycling Association, the Wisconsin Off Road Bicycling Association and the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin.
“Hopefully, I can transfer my experiences training and racing into support for our student-athletes who want to push themselves to new levels of competition in a sport that they love,” said Damm, who is also Ripon College’s director of publications and institutional image. “Cycling is a passion for me, and I plan to build this program with students who share that passion.”
The National Collegiate Cycling Association (NCCA), founded in 1985, is a standing committee of USA Cycling. NCCA administers, develops, promotes and governs collegiate cycling throughout the United States. The country is divided geographically into 10 different conferences by state. Schools compete within their conference for all events culminating with conference championships. Each conference qualifies teams to attend annual national championships.
About Ripon College
Ripon College, founded in 1851, prepares students of diverse interests for lives of productive, socially responsible citizenship. Ripon’s liberal arts curriculum and residential campus create an intimate learning community in which students experience a richly personalized education. Ripon has been recognized as a “best value” and “Best 361 College” by The Princeton Review, a “Best Buy in College Education” by Barron’s, and among the 160 best schools in the nation by Colleges of Distinction. For more information about Ripon College, visit www.ripon.edu. |
