During my college career there has been one thing that I have been consistently disappointed with as far as athletics go at Aquinas: the intramural program.

Being a part of Ultimate frisbee, volleyball and floor hockey teams during my four years, and watching several other sports, I have concluded that the intramural sports system needs to be improved.

The primary problem stems from this — there’s no organization.

Most of the intramural programs are run by student-athletes, without any training on officiating or little direction on how to go about putting together an intramural season.

During intramurals season I oftentimes found myself not knowing when my games even were, primarily because there was only one copy of the schedule between our team. Sometimes, I found that teams didn’t even have schedules. Instead, game times would be announced via Facebook an hour before the game.

That left a lot of teams (especially our Ultimate frisbee team) running around and trying to find last-minute players.

The disorganization of the intramural system is also reflected in the lack of clearly defined rules. My first time playing on a volleyball squad this winter was rife with confusion — no one on our team knew of the rule about having a female touch the ball before it went over the net. Because of the co-ed aspect of intramural volleyball, one of the rules was that if the ball was hit by more than one person, one of those people had to be female. If you didn’t include a female in hitting it over the net, the point would go the other way.

In addition, it even seemed that the officiating often seemed to lean towards a certain side due to prior relationships. Half the time, our team had to correct the score before we continued playing.

This is a problem.

All of these things lead to frustration, which is an emotion that shouldn’t be involved in the playing of sports for fun.

So what should happen from here?

Well, first off, the intramural program has to become more professional. We need to hire an intramural program director that can oversee every sport from year to year. Students shouldn’t run the program, but should be involved through an advisory board and by officiating. College students are busy enough as it is — and many of the students that help with intramurals are both students and varsity athletes.

That alone can lead to disorganization.

Secondly, one of the key problems I’ve noticed that has effected every team I’ve ever been on is the scheduling aspect. Not only is it tough to know when you have a game, but even when you do know, it’s often hard to make it to the games. Having a game on a Wednesday night during quads, or during mass at Bukowski Chapel, poses a problem.

We’re a Catholic college. Keyword number one — Catholic. Intramurals shouldn’t interfere with going to mass. Keyword number two — college. Intramurals shouldn’t interfere with classes.
Being a communication major, I could never make the Wednesday night games for intramural volleyball, simply because I had class on Wednesday nights all year.

The Ultimate frisbee schedule got it right — games should be played on weekend afternoons. And if they need to be played at night, pick a night that’s not full of quadmester classes.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, make sure that all players know the rules. There should be either a handout to every team before the first game, or rules should be made available online.
That way, there’s no confusion about who has to touch the ball before it gets hit over the net.
Intramurals should be fun. But they should also be organized enough so players don’t have to stress themselves out during a season.