With a large variety of clubs and extracurriculars to choose at

STA, there’s one this year that’s never been seen before. Over 100 people originally signed up to be in Croquet Club, an extracurricular founded by juniors Elise McGhie and Delaney Hupke. It mainly stands out due to its origin as an English sport that isn’t typically characterized among the top sports in the United States.

After playing the sport at her grandparents’ house last spring break, Hupke shared the idea of forming a Croquet Club with McGhie.

“When Delaney brought it to me, I was very excited at the prospect of it,” McGhie said. “I think that’s part of the beauty of it, so many people are not familiar with the sport, so by starting the club we’re bringing people something new that they’ve never done before.”

After bringing the idea to Principal of Student Affairs Liz Baker, she approved their interest in creating Croquet Club but told them they first had to find a moderator and write some bylaws. So McGhie and Hupke decided to ask social studies teacher Andrew Meyer be the moderator of their extracurricular.

“There’s no other club that is

anywhere near or anything like a Croquet Club,” Meyer said. “So mainly, when they approached me, it caught me off guard because of the uniqueness of the proposal, but I thought it would be fun, and it’s something that everyone can be a part of.”

Gallery • 7 Photos

Freshman Savannah Gentry prepares to hit a ball through a wicket during Croquet Club’s first meeting Oct. 11. Social Studies teacher Andrew Meyer is Croquet Club’s moderator. photo by Olivia Wirtz

Croquet might be familiar for some, but the rules of the game can elude others. In shortened terms, croquet is played using wooden mallets, and each team uses different colored balls, each weighing one pound, when playing. The objective is to hit the ball through each wicket, or stakes, placed in the ground in the correct order of a figure eight shape, scoring points as you go.

Both Hupke and McGhie wanted to make Croquet Club an extracurricular, a group that meets on non-club days, in order for more people to be involved. They also did research to better understand the rules of the game to make it easier on current members.

“In doing research to make the club, we did go back over and past just knowing the basics,” Hupke said. “We did do some research about it. We know how to teach croquet, and if you had any questions during playing we could answer them.”

McGhie and Hupke are planning to go over the basic rules for the 46 people that are now members of the club during their first meeting to ensure fair games.

McGhie also thinks that once everyone gets the hang of the sport, there could be an intraclub tournament put on later in the spring. Meyer agreed with this idea due to the large amount of interest in Croquet Club, believing that the bigger the games, the more interest there could be in the sport.

“Because of the really big initial interest, I think if there is a croquet tournament, we can open it up to other people,” Meyer said. “I think that’s something people might be interested in as a fun thing to do.”

Both McGhie and Hupke think that even though the club is in its beginning stages it has the ability to expand beyond just an extracurricular at school.

“Coming back in 20 years and seeing a croquet team would make me very excited and happy,” Hupke said. “It has a certain prestige.”

However, Meyer believes that it’s a little too early to be thinking that far ahead as croquet is still just forming as an extracurricular at STA let alone a sport.

“I think those are high hopes that are likely not to come to fruition,” Meyer said. “That said, in 20 years, if croquet club is still in existence, I think she’ll be just as happy.”

McGhie and Hupke believe they’ll play in the large expanse of grass adjacent to the senior parking lot every meeting to have enough space for members to play. They will also have the most say in what will happen during meetings.

“I think it’s important to have student leadership as much as we can to get what it means to have responsibilities and things like that,” Meyer said. “For the most part, Elise and Delaney, given their consistent desire for this club to work are really willing to put everything into it, and I’ll be there to make sure everything just goes smoothly.”