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I suppose I'll throw a bit in about my experience in starting and running a college team. My first set of advice would be to not do it. But more seriously, it is a lot of work and you should be prepared for a lot of work, a lot of stress, a lot of getting blamed, and a lot of sleepless nights. However, it can also be a very rewarding experience (personally, seeing excited high school students make it worthwhile to me).
As far as starting a team goes, the best bit of advice I can offer is to talk to anyone and everyone that will listen. If you talk about it as much as possible, it's that much more likely for it to happen. And there's the possibility that the person you're talking to may be able to help you out in someway.
At RIT, we've yet to become an officially recognized club on campus as it doesn't really provide us any benefits. We are recognized by the College of Engineering (official recognizition is by Student Government). Most of the team's funding comes from Bausch & Lomb but a significant portion comes from RIT (the College of Engineering and Admissions specifically).
The real key in getting a team is to get someone significantly high in the power structure who not only believes that having a FIRST team is a good idea but also that you can pull it off. In our case, it was the Associate Dean of Engineering and he's gone to bat for us numerous times when we've needed it (unasked normally). That's the key to actually making sure it happens.
As the team is still going strong even while those who were originally involved were on co-op, it seems to me that we've at least gotten to a point where a team will continue to exist so perhaps there's some actual use in what I said above. Best of luck with it.
Matt
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