Recreational Sports & Wellness added tennis and racquetball to the intramural program to stimulate student activity.
“What we’re trying to do with that is incorporate more sports for other students more than just the main three sports of basketball, softball and soccer,” said Coordinator of Competitive Sports Jason Templet. “I want to try to bring on other sports that other people still like and get more activity out of our intramural system and bring on some new events.”
Having space for tennis and racquetball contributed to the decision to add those sports.
“We have two racquetball courts inside our facility,” said Templet. “Those don’t get used as much as I would like them to. So I’m trying to make the students more aware that we do have those as well as the tennis courts. They’re right there as well. So, I want students to be able to have more activities there. By having tournaments there, hopefully it’ll bring more attention to those two sports, and besides our tournaments, maybe they’ll go out there and just play on their own and have fun.”
Besides the new additions, the intramural program includes flag football, outdoor soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball. Templet plans to include more sports in the intramural program.
“I’ve been thinking about bringing on kickball,” said Templet. “I feel like that would be a really fun one for a lot of people to make a team and participate in. Another one is badminton that I’m thinking about doing for next semesters coming up.”
Templet compared participating in intramurals to varsity sports.
“With doing an intramural activity, it’s not as time consuming as being on a NCAA team, therefore, it’s more just recreational,” said Templet. “You can just come and play with a group of friends. You can be on the same team, like a doubles team, and you and your friend can enter the tournament. You can still have a chance to win an intramural T-shirt and just having more activity rather than be a part of such a structured event like a NCAA tennis team.”
To enter a team or to see the schedule for intramural sports, Recreational Sports and Wellness uses IMLeagues with a link available on the website. Templet hopes to bring more attention to the intramural program.
“I feel like a lot of people don’t know about our program, and that’s why we only have so many teams that join,” said Templet. “My goal is to have so many teams wanting to sign up that we have to have a cutoff of the number of teams that we can have. That’s my goal that everyone in the school knows about the intramurals and as many people as can want to come play.”
