Intra­mu­rals Revamped

By Elise Marie Knable ’09

Dur­ing the Spring 2009 semes­ter, Wes­ley stu­dents had the oppor­tu­nity to become involved in a newly struc­tured intra­mural sports pro­gram under the direc­tion of the Office of Stu­dent Life. As a means for com­mu­nity build­ing, healthy phys­i­cal exer­cise and social­iz­ing, the pro­gram has been revamped and strongly mar­keted to attract greater stu­dent par­tic­i­pa­tion. “Under the direc­tion of Dean Oze­choski, we feel strongly that intra­mu­rals belong in stu­dent life because they are such an impor­tant way for stu­dents to get involved, build inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships, build lead­er­ship skills and demon­strate pos­i­tive sports­man­ship,” Amanda Kinkade, coor­di­na­tor of stu­dent life, com­mented. “We want to take the pro­gram to the next level and make it some­thing really fun and com­pet­i­tive,” she continued.

The pro­gram offers stu­dents the chance to play sports regard­less of their ath­letic abil­ity or work sched­ule. “We have three major goals for this pro­gram: to increase stu­dent well­ness, to build com­mu­nity amongst par­tic­i­pants and fans, and to have some fun, com­pet­i­tive pride,” Kinkade remarked. She pointed out that it also gives stu­dents an oppor­tu­nity to get involved with peers and make new friends while exer­cis­ing together on a team. As the pro­gram has grown, the num­ber of fans has grown and more peo­ple come out and cheer for friends. “This is some­thing that is so impor­tant given our back­ground as a United Methodist affil­i­ated insti­tu­tion,” Kinkade noted. “The empha­sis on civil­ity, sports­man­ship and kind­ness is some­thing that builds good char­ac­ter within the stu­dents participating.”

Kinkade described the empha­sis placed on com­mu­nity build­ing within the pro­gram for res­i­dent and com­muter stu­dents alike. She explained that res­i­den­tial stu­dents build com­mu­nity pride by putting together teams in their res­i­dence halls. Res­i­dents also enjoy see­ing their res­i­dent direc­tors in a dif­fer­ent role when they par­tic­i­pate or cheer for the teams in their hall. Com­muters get a chance to meet peers and feel con­nected with Wes­ley as they feel more com­fort­able on cam­pus and make it their “sec­ond home.” “It gives them the oppor­tu­nity to know a wide vari­ety of stu­dents that they might not see in class, eat­ing in the din­ing hall or just hang­ing out on cam­pus,” Kinkade explained.

Along with the ben­e­fits of social­iz­ing and stay­ing phys­i­cally fit, the pro­gram presents the oppor­tu­nity for stu­dents to train as offi­cials and get expe­ri­ence in this capac­ity dur­ing the actual games on cam­pus. Kinkade noted that although any stu­dent can apply to be an offi­cial, many of the stu­dents who want the posi­tion are either sports man­age­ment or exer­cise sci­ence majors, or stu­dent ath­letes want­ing to bet­ter under­stand the logis­tics of the games. “Cur­rently our two stu­dent man­agers are a sports man­age­ment major and a phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion major. They have taken the pro­gram to the next level while gain­ing expe­ri­ence in their future field of work,” she commented.

The Office of Stu­dent Life already has orga­nized an intra­mural pro­gram sched­ule for the  upcom­ing aca­d­e­mic year. “We will have five sport leagues and sev­eral one day tour­na­ments,” Kinkade said. The five sports will include kick­ball, vol­ley­ball, dodge­ball, indoor soc­cer and flag foot­ball. The Stu­dent Life staff expects some stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate in all five sports through­out the year and other indi­vid­u­als to join for a par­tic­u­lar sport they want to play.
As for future pro­gram­ming, Kinkade men­tioned the pos­si­bil­ity of “extra­mu­rals, where Wesley’s cham­pi­onship team would com­pete with other cham­pi­onship teams from local col­leges.” Other thoughts include incor­po­rat­ing non­tra­di­tional games, such as four square tour­na­ments in front of Car­pen­ter Hall, corn­hole com­pe­ti­tions and more. Kinkade is opti­mistic that the intra­mural pro­gram will draw in the new, first-year Wes­ley stu­dents and help them get a jump­start on get­ting involved on cam­pus and mak­ing new friends. Kinkade sum­ma­rized, “The future of this pro­gram is bright and will pro­vide all stu­dents with the oppor­tu­nity to just be a Wolver­ine and have some fun!” W