This year marks the first time in recent history students have been told that they won’t be able to play intramural sports. That’s because Campus Rec capped the number of teams allowed to participate.
The fact that our University has this initial problem is a good thing because it means students want to take part in intramural sports. But the unfortunate part is that students who want to take part in a physical activity, are being denied — even after they pay fees to support intramural sports.
Campus Rec created a waitlist for students and their teams who are not allowed to participate.
Campus Rec had 171 teams sign up to play soccer this year. However,only 98 of them will actually be kicking the ball around due to the number restrictions. This is unacceptable, especially when these numbers are down from last year when everyone was allowed to participate.
The main rationale for the cap was safety — a respectful, but not a satisfactory reason. It’s easy to hide behind the safety argument, but when you had more teams participate last year when there wasn’t a cap, it’s hard to accept this reason.
If safety is the main reason for the caps, then Campus Rec must look for alternative sites to facilitate all the teams that want to play. Possible alternative sites to play intramural games include Lee Field, which is still on campus and also as convenient as playing on the IM Fields. A last resort can be the Method Road Complex.
With all the talk about obesity in society, it’s sad that our University wants to prohibit students from being active. Campus Rec must think outside the box to solve the problems that are preventing every student from intramural sports that wants to play.
One of the highlights of the school year is playing intramural sports with friends — this year some will not get that chance and will miss out on the memories. Students should voice their concerns if they feel they have been unfairly cut from the action. The ball is now in the hands of Campus Rec to rectify the problem so that this will not happen again.
