By Andrew Reever

Intramural sports are growing in popularity but there’s always room for more sports and players, especially for freshmen who are looking for ways to meet people and get involved on campus.

The current spring season is underway with intramural sports like cornhole, Knocker Soccer, air hockey, badminton, ping pong, and Spikeball. With some of these sports already underway you can still add onto a team in the additions section.

Flag football is the most popular of the fall rec sports. In addition, there is water polo, volleyball, basketball. floor hockey, dodgeball, soccer and even fantasy sports leagues.

Students who have been involved or participated in any of these sports have commented on the fun it has been playing with friends and classmates. Brian Perez, a senior in Sport Management, called intramural sports a “good, fun experience. It gave us a good outlet to make friends, be active, and compete without a serious commitment. It was fun looking forward to the games, knowing that after class you would be able to go and toss some touchdowns and score on your classmates with your friends.”

Perez said that while he thinks the selection of sports is good, the school should take some of the popular sports such as soccer and flag football and incorporate these leagues into the spring schedule. “They would definitely get a lot more participation,” he said.

COVID definitely had an impact on club sports the past couple of years, both in terms of forcing games to be postponed and also cutting into staff.

Rachel Finley, the director of Campus Recreation, said that “we are only at 10 total staff, with one supervisor on each night of intramural events. We only have a total of four supervisors for the intramural sports program.”

With her staff running the intramural sports, they have to train all of the officials for the specific sports they are a part of. When asked about participation since COVID, Finley said that it “has increased since the COVID restrictions have been slowly lifting. Even with the enrollment decline, the participation rate has been good,” she said.

This then led to the discussion of how a student could suggest having a sport added to the intramural list. Finley said that students can suggest a sport and it could possibly be tried out in a tournament to see if it will get enough participation.

Said Finley, “There could be more; however, with COVID, it is hard for indoor sports due to restrictions at the moment as well.”

One of the biggest problems with club sports beyond COVID has been their profile on campus, and not just at York College.

According to NCAA statistics, Finley said, “90% of high school athletes don’t go on to play collegiate sports, only about 6% to 7% play varsity college sports.” This leaves the last few percent of high school athletes to not play at all. “This is where we come in,” Finley said.

With new students coming in and not many knowing about intramural sports until their sophomore or junior year, Finley and her team feel that being able to get a word or two out about the program would boost more involvement.

So, if you still want to be a star, now is the time to sign up through the YCP website. You can read more on club sports at this link.

Andrew Reever is a junior who is majoring in Sport Management.