SPRINGFIELD, Missouri – Beginning this fall, Evangel University will launch a slate of collegiate club sports, including bass fishing, beach volleyball, bowling, CrossFit, and disc golf. These offerings will supplement Evangel’s robust varsity athletic teams and provide more opportunities for students to get involved in athletic competition. Scholarships are available.
Additional club sports will be introduced over the next two years, including archery, axe throwing, cornhole, men’s volleyball, shotgun, spikeball, and three on three basketball.
Kelly Richardson, EU’s Sport Management and Physical Education program coordinator, will serve as the director of club sports.
“Club sports offer a variety of opportunities for students to get involved, compete against other institutions, and proudly represent Valor nation!” Richardson said. “This is just another example of how EU is working hard to enhance the student life experience here on campus.”
Club sport teams will compete with other schools’ teams but do not fall under the university’s athletic conference and do not have varsity status. Club sport teams will be led by an athletic coach or by students with an EU advisor. Standards of enrollment status, grade point average, and community standing may be required for team membership.
For more information, please visit https://evangel.prestosports.com/clubsports.
About Kelly Richardson
Kelly Richardson serves as the program coordinator of the Sport Management degree at Evangel. She will continue in this role in addition to overseeing club sports.
Richardson graduated from Evangel in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education. She also received a Master of Science in Athletic Administration and Activity at Southwest Baptist University.
In 2007, Richardson was named head volleyball coach at Southwest Baptist University. In 2014, Richardson moved into NCAA Division I athletics, accepting the first assistant/recruiting coordinator volleyball position at the University of Texas at Arlington.
In the spring of 2015, Richardson was named head volleyball coach at Western Illinois University, also a Division I institution.
Richardson returned to southwest Missouri in 2018 to join the Kinesiology Department at Evangel.
She is a member of the Evangel Athletics Hall of Fame and the Willard High School Activities Hall of Fame.
She currently serves as the director of 417 Juniors Volleyball Club and co-hosts “Hart to Hart High School Sports” with her father, John Hartley, on 96.9 The Jock ESPN Radio in Springfield.
Richardson resides in Springfield with her husband Robb, an Evangel alum and former football All-American, and their two children, Rylan and Hartley.
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Evangel University, with the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (AGTS), is a comprehensive Christian university committed to excellence in educating and equipping students to serve the Church and society globally. Evangel and AGTS serve more than 2,200 students from all 50 states and numerous foreign countries, offering 70 undergraduate majors and 19 master and doctoral degrees.