The present study assessed participation motives for intercollegiate athletic clubs of university students and examined its differences between regulars and reserves. The data were obtained from 251 male and female athletes who were belonging to intercollegiate athletic clubs in an university. The questionnaire was prepared by interviewing 50 male and female athletes. Main findings were as follows: 1) As a result of a factor analysis, seven categories of participation motives were obtained.Among these motives,"achievement","health and physical fitness","affiliation","free and equality",and "social usefulness" were identical with the results of previous studies regarding motives for sports participation. However, this study was characterized by such unique motives as "avoidance" and "adherence"; especially,"avoidance" motive was most significant. 2) Discriminant function analysis revealed that the motives of "free and equality","health and physical fitness", and "adherence" were discriminating regulars and reserves. "Free and equality" motive was most significant among these three motives. This means that, comparing to the reserves, the regulars are belonging to athletic clubs motivated by free and equal atmosphere of teams to which they belong. 3) Finally, comparative analysis was undertaken to examine whether there were differences in their participation motives or not in terms of sexual difference, academic speciality (major), the types of sporting events in which they compete, and their academic year. Through every comparison the influence of "free and equality" motive was strong in the regulars.However, there existed the motives that exerted unique influences in each comparison. For example, "adherence" motive was more significant for the female reserves than the male regulars. The regulars of physical education major were more influenced by the motives of "achievement" and "social usefulness" than others. "Health and physical fitness" motive exerted the most distinctive influence between the regulars and the reserves of in their third year.