Tyler Boydston
Managing Editor
Cameron University’s fall intramural sports kicked off in style this semester with a dodgeball tournament that took place at 5:30 p.m. on August 28 in the Aggie Rec Center.
The event, which began the intramural season, was hosted by PAC and featured teams of students and campus faculty going toe-to-toe in extreme games of dodgeball, leading up to the championship match.
The intramurals competitions have been going on for several years here at Cameron, and are used as a way to get students and faculty who are ordinarily not involved in sports to participate in a friendly environment.
According to Student Activities Specialist Megan Canfield, the teams this year were made up of on-campus organizations and programs as well as groups of friends banding together to make their own teams.
“Students get to pick their own teams,” Canfield said. “I can certainly tell that a lot of the teams were grouped by groups of friends or people who are in the same organization. I know that the first-year PLUS scholars all had a team, the second-year PLUS scholars had a team, the staff usually tend to make a team and the rest were groups of friends that I typically see on the same team in intramurals.”
The competition within the intramural dodgeball championship eventually boiled down to two teams: the second-year PLUS scholars and the faculty team, with the second-year PLUS scholars coming out victorious.
“We were all really impressed that the staff team made it as far as they did, but they had student help this year.”
The Dragons would go on to receive intramurals t-shirts as well as a picture in the display case for the new school year.
“I’m working on assembling all of the past years’ winners to put their pictures in a different display case,” Canfield said.
The rest of the semester’s events will include 3-on-3 basketball, Ping-Pong, flag football, tennis, racquetball, volleyball, and swimming, with a triathlon also added into the mix, all taking place inside the Aggie Rec Center.
Canfield said her technique of picking out which sports will be played depends on what she thinks students will want to participate in.
“The real decision to me comes to what sports we’re going to offer,” Canfield said. “I try to pick sports that I know students are going to want to play. Some of the favorites are things like basketball and flag football. Then I try to make sure I pick other sports that might not be incredibly popular, but certainly meet the interests of students who want to play that. For example, badminton might not be very popular, but the students who play badminton love it.”
Canfield said she has plans to try to do quidditch and tennis in the spring because she wants to make sure to offer a well-rounded array of sports.
Canfield said she wants students to understand the registration cut-off times in relation to the events in order for all students who want to play to be able to be involved.
“To make sure I prepare for all of the sports that are happening, I always close the registration at noon on the day of the competition unless it’s on a weekend, in which case it is that Friday at noon,” Canfield said. “We’re open to all Cameron students with a valid id card, as well as faculty. We do all of our registration online at imleagues.com. After making an account, someone can create a team or sign up as a free agent and hope to be picked up by a team.”