This spring semester, students have the opportunity to participate in intramural sports, including basketball, soccer, softball and sand volleyball.
Soccer and basketball games will be held Monday through Wednesday, softball games will be held Tuesday through Thursday and sand volleyball matches will be held on Thursdays.
Intramural sports offer students a chance to have fun, make new friends and participate in friendly competition. Intramurals also offers an opportunity for participants to come out of their shell.
Daniel Choi, a Junior Allied Health major and intramural intern, believes intramural sports are for everyone with a competitive spirit.
“Intramurals are for anybody willing to go outside of their box and meet new people,” Choi said. “Students can build friendships and express their competitive spirit. We just want to bring back that competitive environment and give people a chance to have fun.”
They also give students like Glenn Ramos, a Sophomore Accounting major, the chance to play their favorite sport again.
“I am going to play soccer because I played it in high school,” Ramos said. “I think it would be a good recreational sport to play and have fun with.”
Ramos wanted to participate in basketball too but hinted at possibly playing it next year instead. He noted that basketball is one of the most popular intramural sports during the spring.
“Basketball has two leagues while soccer only has one.” Ramos said.
Men’s intramural basketball offers two different leagues, but women’s basketball only has one. Those two men’s leagues are the A-league and B-league. The A-league is for experienced players who want to play in a competitive league. On the other hand, the B-league is for students like Nicholas Umali, a Sophomore International Business major, who just wants to play for fun.
“I am just trying to hoop. I chose to play basketball because my friends are playing it,” Umali said. “My friends and I are starting a team in the B-league because the A-league is probably too competitive for us.”
In addition to the usual spring sports, the Office of Communiversity added a few new intramural sports and activities to the fold.
“I will be a coaching cardio kickboxing, which is a new sport we added this semester,” Choi said. “There will be dodgeball tournament and lastly, a spikeball tournament in April.”
This spring semester will offer one day tournaments as well. Choi talked about the process of establishing new events like the one day tournaments.
“The new tournaments we introduce depend on what most people are interested in,” Choi said. “We are starting a one day 3-v-3 basketball tournament and a one day 4-v-4 soccer tournament because people really wanted it and asked for it.”
The basketball tournament will take place in the Cougar Dome, and the soccer tournament will be held at the Dillon Recreational Complex later this February. According to Choi, students are finding the one day tournaments to be more appealing than the leagues.
“The one day tournaments are super cool because people can experience what the leagues are like for a day,” Choi said. “The tournaments seem to be more popular than the leagues because they require less commitment. For the leagues, there are attendance and forfeit policies that teams cannot break.”
Choi expressed how difficult it has been to promote intramurals this spring due to recent weather. The weather issues discouraged many students from signing up for intramurals right away.
“Publicizing intramurals and getting the word out has been hard to do this semester,” Choi said. “All of the raining and storming drenched and ruined most of our promotional posters.”
Because of the weather, sign-ups for intramurals were slow initially. However, people have begun to join now that the weather has cleared up.
In an effort to excite and encourage students to join a team, Choi revealed that the winning teams of the one day tournaments would receive a special prize.
“The winning team of the basketball tournament will receive a basketball signed by Jon Wallace,” Choi said. “The winning soccer team will be rewarded with a Jon Wallace signed soccer ball. It is a fun way to promote the sports.”
For more information on spring intramurals, students can go online to imleagues.com.