Mylo: Pitt desperately needs spelunking team

Despite the horror factor in the movie “The Descent,” after watching it, I realized that I… Despite the horror factor in the movie “The Descent,” after watching it, I realized that I may have missed my calling in life as a spelunker.

Pitt is well-versed in the traditional sports, equipped with a top-notch climbing wall, soon-to-be-built baseball field and the Mecca of all sporting facilities – the Petersen Events Center.

Some would argue that this is enough. I, however, would not.

The climbing wall will not satisfy my urge to attach myself to ropes, put on a helmet and go exploring. Pitt desperately requires a spelunking team – or the more technical term: a “caving” team. Not a real sport, you say? Wikipedia says differently. No caves around, you argue? I’ve solved that one, too.

I vote we turn the train tunnel that runs past CMU into a cave, complete with secret chambers, dripping ceilings, maybe even some CHUDs – or as they’re referred to in “The Descent” – crawlers. We’ll call ours CHUDs, just to be cooler.

The train can still run, too. That’ll set us apart from caves other campuses may concoct.

Now, the Outdoors Club does go “caving” from time to time. However, having an actual cave nearby would be much more convenient and may even attract more aspiring spelunkers such as myself to try it out.

Also, before chalking this up as some completely outlandish suggestion, consider some of the more untraditional sporting teams that get their own club under Pitt’s wing.

Two of such surprising sports complete with their own courses are fly-fishing and kayaking.

“Kayaking!” you may say. “Cool, fly-fishing!” you may say.

“Useful?”

I bet you wouldn’t even blink an eye if you saw spelunking on this list. Plus, it’s definitely cooler than fly-fishing.

Just to give you an idea of what exactly goes on in a fly-fishing course, the Web site states: “This is a beginner’s class designed to give you the basics in tying flies, casting, reading the water and tying the knots. The skills and techniques will enable you to use the flies that you create to catch fish. Field experience will follow classroom sessions. Prerequisites: None.”

Now you know.

There are usually fees associated with these “outside adventure” courses, but isn’t it worth it? The old joke “I majored in underwater basket-weaving!” will be quickly replaced – with good reason – by the fact that you learned how to fly-fish in college.

Some other club sports offered through Pitt are fencing, water polo and badminton.

These, however, are not half as interesting as two others I came across: skydiving and squash.

With 10 and 11 members, respectively, these clubs offer training, if needed, in a fun environment for students with a love of such an activity to come together and unite.

According to its Web site, the Skydiving Club offers: “Relative work formation, skydiving teams and competitions, canopy-related formation piloting, high-speed pond swooping, freefly competitions and tandem skydiving.”

I, for one, want to do the high-speed pond swooping. If any word should be used to denote skydiving, it should be swooping.

Squash may not sound as exciting to you, but not only is it the No. 2 cardiovascular sport with a ball in the world, it just sounds cool. Haven’t you always wondered what exactly people who played squash did? Haven’t you always wondered what kind of people play squash?

Well, maybe you didn’t, but take a minute. We all know the sport exists, but who plays it? Where is it played?

I have two answers. People here at Pitt. Right here at Pitt.

If you think you should know how to play golf before going into the business world, you may also want to consider squash, which I hear is highly preferred among business professionals these days, especially in Britain.

Speaking of Britain, why don’t we all learn how to play cricket while we’re at this? Good enough for the British, good enough for us. Maybe Prince William will even come over to try out our new game. He can go into our new cave while he’s at it. We’ll start a phenomenon. Soon, no European university will be complete without a conveniently located cave for future spelunkers.

If not, maybe those European universities can at least follow our example and offer a wide variety of sports, from fly-fishing to badminton to regular old basketball and soccer.

Because when you look at all that, you may be able to forget that we don’t have a spelunking team.

I, however, will not.