Have you heard of the changes being made to the Intramural Sports offered on campus at UA?

Intramural Sports is a program on campus organized as a way for the campus community to play sports separate from the intercollegiate level.

Currently, there are several sports offered in the intramural program at UA; including volleyball, dodgeball, futsal, wiffle ball Home Run Derby, wiffle ball, team bowling, basketball skill, NCAA Pick ‘em, basketball, flag football, wallyball, racquetball and softball.

Each year the staff at the Recreation and Wellness Center reviews the programs and make adjustments to best meet the requirements of the department and the institution.

Factors that are taken into consideration when making changes to Intramural Sports were student interest, past participation, field/court availability and budget.

According to Aaron Books, manager of Intramural Sports at UA, there were a variety of changes to almost every sport:

• Flag Football offerings have been changed from Monday through Thursday to Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
• The 4-on-4 Flag Football will not be offered this upcoming spring.
• The fall semester basketball tournament has been changed from 5-on-5 to a 3-on-3 non-officiated tournament.
• The fall semester volleyball tournament has been changed from offering a women’s, men’s and co-rec tournament to a co-rec double elimination tournament.
• After many requests from students to free up space on the floor and hopefully increase scoring, Futsal is changing from a 5-on-5 to a 4-on-4, but the league format will remain the same.
• The spring basketball league format is changing from Monday through Thursday to Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
• Fall soccer will be changing to a co-rec double elimination tournament.

While most changes were made to the schedules or amount of people playing at once, a change that has upset students is the change in intramural soccer.

In past years, intramural soccer was held in the fall semester and ran for a few weeks before an elimination tournament was played, as this allowed teams to play each other without worrying too much about the score, as is the whole purpose of intramural sports.

The change cuts intramural soccer from multiple weeks of games to just one double elimination tournament, where teams will be eliminated after losing two games.

Many students who are involved in Intramural Sports are upset about the change, including Dominic Falcione, a fifth-year mechanical engineering major, who believes the decision is unfair to those who are not able to play at the intercollegiate level.

“Mostly, I am simply angry that I lost several weeks of my only real chance to play competitive soccer at this point in my college career and I think it is disrespectful to all students who enjoy intramural soccer and use it as an opportunity to compete in the sport,” Falcione said.

Books said these changes will only be applied to this year and will be reevaluated again for the next.

“We are trying to do our best to still provide quality experiences for our students and give them as many opportunities,” Books said.