Auburn Climbing Team

If you are craving a community, competition, a fun sport and a stress reliever alongside blisters, bruised limbs, and sore muscles, the Auburn Climbing Team may be for you.

The Auburn Climbing Team is a widely popular sport on campus, influenced by the Rec Center’s two large climbing walls, indoor bouldering and smaller outdoor climbing area.

The climbing team currently has 40 members and with after ‘Get Rec’d’, they have an interested sign-up sheet of over two pages.

The Auburn Climbing Team is a club sport, that travels for competitions around the South.

All competitions are indoor based, though the team prefers outdoor. Virginia White, Club President, said that though outdoor climbing is harder to facilitate, it is much more rewarding.

Competitions involve beginner, intermediate and advanced categories for both women’s and men’s events. Last year, Auburn hosted the “iron bowl” of climbing and took a win over University of Alabama.

Being a part of the organization can be very rewarding. “It’s a huge commitment, like it’s a really big commitment, but it pays off a lot,” said White, “For your personal self. You grow a lot personally and by forcing yourself to keep trying at something even though it feels like you’ve just plateaued, eventually you’ll get it. It’s also a really great community when you buy into it.”

As far as time commitment, the team meets twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to 11 at the campus climbing walls.

Jacob McNeal, a member of the climbing team, said that when he was started, he was afraid of heights.

“When I started climbing, I hated heights,” said McNeal.

So during one of his first practices, the coach, Randy, tells him he needs to do suicides. In this exercise, you climb up to a certain height on a route, and then climb down. You repeat, going up higher and climbing down once again. This exercise repeats.

McNeal said that, “by the end of that I was trembling, sweating and my hands couldn’t hold onto anything.”

Despite these rough first practices, he’s since then improved greatly and enjoys climbing. He says that he is now ten times better than when he began.

The members all talk about the community you’re joining with this team.

Officer Ian Doremus shared a story about his first climbing competition. He described it as going into the woods with a group of people you know nothing about and being expected to live with them for a few days. However, now he says that the guy he shared a tent with is his best friend.

“It breaks down barriers, for sure,” said White.

There might be obstacles to overcome, but with practice, each member improves.

When asked what is the greatest barrier she’s had to overcome, White responded that, “Being short is terrible, and there’s not really any overcoming that. It’s just realizing that you are going to have to be really flexible and you can’t let that be an excuse for how you’re climbing.”

A member of the team, Chad Brouwer, had advice for anyone considering climbing for the first time.

“Stick with it after the first week or so…You’re not going to be able to do much, probably.”

The effort is worth the improvement, however. Brouwer won in his category in the first competition he attended with the Auburn University Climbing Club.

If you’re looking for something to relieve stress, according to Doremus, give climbing a try.

White agreed, “It helps you with problem-solving and thinking about things in creative ways, and there’s a really cool community around it.”