Intramural sports give students the ability to be able to connect with new friends, by playing a sport that they enjoy, competitively. Even our student body president partakes in the events, with his little free time during the week.

“They are definitely a fun opportunity to stay engaged in passions that you had in high school and not have to put too much time into them,” Student Body President Ben Linzey said.

However, there are plenty of things that could be fixed within the intramural sports system that would allow for more participants as well as more enjoyable for the students.

“I think there is a lot of room for growth,” Linzey said. “Definitely in terms of the management of it and the scheduling.”

So let’s take a look at what is wrong with Colorado Mesa University’s intramural sports.

Scheduling

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Prior to signing up for each of the different sports that you can partake in while at CMU you are told what days games will be held. Then the games are played anywhere from 5-9 p.m. at the different locations on campus. However, there is a continuous problem with the scheduling of the games.

On multiple occasions, you will look at the website during the week to see your team playing at one particular time. Then on the day of the competition, you look back at the website to see that the game’s time has changed. So having already worked your schedule around the original time, students are then forced to frantically change their schedule around so that they will be able to make it to the game.

Cancellation of games

I understand that not all your games are going to happen when playing intramurals. The main reason is usually due to the opposing team not showing up or having enough players. I can live with that reason.

However, when both teams show up to play a soccer game on a Sunday night at 7 p.m. to then find out that their game was canceled due to the referees being “too cold,” that is irritating as a student. The refs are being paid to attend those games.

If both teams are willing to play in the environment that was set up from the beginning, then the game should be able to go. If one or both of the teams didn’t want to play due to weather that is understandable because it is their game. It is their student funds that are allowing them to participate. But when they are not given the opportunity to because the paid employees of intramurals don’t feel like standing outside in a jacket for 40 minutes, and take away one of the few games during the season from paying students, that is not right.

The referees and scorekeepers

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I agree that these are students and are not professional referees by any sense of the term. So I do not expect them to be perfect. However, when I am sitting on the bench during the basketball game and I have to continuously tell the scorekeeper that my team or my opponent scored because they are too busy talking to their friends behind them or looking at their phone, then there is a problem. They should be paying attention to the game that they are being PAID to attend. It is their job and they should treat it like one.

Varsity athletes vs. Everyone else 

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I know that varsity athletes are students too and they have every right to be able to participate in intramural sports. But as an average to below average athlete, it gets frustrating when you go into a basketball, soccer or volleyball league and you find yourself going up against the varsity squad. That takes a lot of the fun out of it for most people. I don’t want to walk into the game to get completely obliterated and feel like I wasted my time watching a dunk contest happen over my head. So why are there not two different leagues? One for those who want to go up against the varsity athletes, or like the challenge, and one for those who want to compete but know they are not at the same level as the varsity athletes.