More than a t-shirt: The competitive nature of intramural sports

ATTICUS MARSE: My name is Atticus Marse and you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. The U has a ton of intramural sports programs that run throughout the year. Students can take part in everything from basketball to hockey or even to a full sized Battleship game in the pool. But one common thread pulls all of these activities together, the spirit of competition. 

I’ve been playing intramurals since the first semester of my freshman year, but never in a super competitive division. To get an idea of the level of competition first-hand I sat on the sidelines during competitive 5 on 5 intramural basketball, A league well known for its intensity and competitiveness. The games I observed were pretty civil and had good sportsmanship. The main issue I saw was the grief being given to the referees for the way they called the game.

I spoke with Brady Taylor, a fourth-year finance and accounting student who has worked as a referee since he got to college. He told me that basketball is one of the most competitive and intense sports in the intramural program.

BRADY TAYLOR: People definitely take intramurals very competitively. Definitely gets forgotten that intramurals is just, uh, supposed to be for fun. We’re playing for a t-shirt at the end of the day. Yeah, I definitely got yelled at, both by players, coaches in parentheses, because there really are no coaches. But some people think that they have coaches. By fans, whether the fraternity brings their, their fans to the game. Definitely been yelled at before, very common happens every night.

MARSE: These student referees are indeed just college students. And they are getting paid far less than an actual referee would get paid to officiate a game.

TAYLOR: There’s been a couple frat games where, you know, you’ll get called names and people forget that you’re just a student as well. So you know, they’ll stand up and try to get in your face or say that, they’ll cuss at you. Never had any like fist fights, but you know, you’ll get pushing, shoving, cussing, uh, people calling each other names that should not be, you know, repeated.

MARSE: The first game I watched that night was between The Nuns and Greg’s Son, some pretty fun names. This game was played at a very high level. Rhys Carey, an undecided second-year student on the Nuns, agreed with me.

RHYS CAREY: After not being on a team anymore, a lot of guys just need somewhere to bring that competitiveness out. I think that there’s a little, like, skill gap between the higher level guys and just the guys doing it for fun. But in the competitive league, it’s for sure like I could, you could definitely compare it to some schools like varsity basketball.

MARSE: Carey’s team ended up losing the game. But for him winning is not the only thing that matters.

CAREY: And it gets you active. Sometimes, you know, it’s easy to like skip the gym when, when stuff’s piling up, but if it’s people are counting on you to be there, it’s just like a really great outlet for like physically moving, sweating and it’s just fun.

MARSE: These games are definitely a great way to get your cardio in. But despite this sentiment these intramural games can get intense and sometimes lead to bad blood. A player on Greg’s Son, Tommy Lee, a fifth-year student told me that he has experienced some feisty games in the time that he has spent playing intramural basketball.

TOMMY LEE: They had this big guy who was really, really soft and he was calling everything that probably wasn’t a foul. And it was all a bunch of arguments about if there was a foul, if it wasn’t. And basically it just ended in like, just bodies on bodies. And then they won because we were beat and the kid, like, grabs the ball and, like, chucks it into my chest and says, “Hey, good game.” And then like, slaps me in the chest.

MARSE: Interactions like those are not uncommon in these games. Something seen less often is fights, but they can happen.

LEE: Our freshman year we had a five vs. five game and our other buddy was getting chirpy with another guy. And basically a fight broke out and we had to separate the teams. The other guy got T’ed up because he shoved our guy after a play. It’s intramural so the refs miss a lot of calls which can make teams frustrated. And then, it gets pretty physical when they don’t call stuff, so.

MARSE: When I asked him why people take intramural sports so seriously Lee echoed Carey’s point of view.

LEE: I think it’s because it’s all we got now, so, and we’re guys, so we’re competitive. And especially in comp league, this is our form of competition. It seems silly to get into it and the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve learned to just try to have fun with it, but I, I do understand, getting into it. Because it’s like, you know, it’s just you’re signing up for competition and you’re wanting competition.

MARSE: Basketball is definitely one of the most competitive intramural sports, and right along with it is soccer. I spoke with Leo Biel, a third-year logistics, materials and supply chain management major about his experiences officiating on the field. 

LEO BIEL: I’ve been reffing and supervising intramurals for like two years now, and I’ve come across a lot of conflicts and one of them was actually a physical fight at the dome, which involved players getting way too over competitive and saying extremely hurtful things about each other. And it resulted in punches being thrown and immediately we had to break it up and people were thrown to the ground. 

And it’s really a situation that, you know, nobody ever wants to be in, but it just happens and it’s kind of crazy that something as simple and, you know, friendly as an intramural game can get physical and it really hurts the integrity of the intramural program.

MARSE: The incident resulted in the suspension of a player and the banning of both teams from the playoffs that term. Biel told me that soccer is one of the most competitive and physical sports he has refereed.

BIEL: You know, they kind of push aside the, the friendliness of soccer and really just care about winning and the competitive nature really gets to them. And sometimes it turns into that physical conflict. 

MARSE: Copacabana is one of the most well known intramural teams in the campus soccer community. They stand out compared to others because of their bright yellow Brazilian national team jerseys and outspoken nature towards the refs. I spoke with one of their players, Kian Mehrayin, a third-year finance major, about why they play intramurals.

KIAN MEHRAYIN: Well, we all grew up playing competitive leagues. I play in the UPSL league. A number of guys do as well. We have one player who played professionally overseas, so we felt that this was the best challenge for us. It’s just a way to keep playing every week. We don’t have to drive anywhere. We play in the field house as well, so we play twice a week. And our goal is to win as many championships as we can. We’ve won one here, one in the field house. We’re looking to add a second for each. 

MARSE: Mehrayin and others on the team have played in the UPSL or United Premier Soccer League, which is a developmental semi-professional league in the US.

I watched one of their games at the Recreation and Wellness Center Dome. The dome houses field space for soccer, flag football, other intramurals and some club sports. Copacabana ended up winning a tight game. But tempers flared at half time between teammates when the score was tied. 

Even competitive intramural leagues aren’t thought of as very high level or intense by the general student population. At the end of the day these are thought to be low stakes low bar of entry sports leagues designed to keep people active. But that doesn’t mean that teams don’t value winning championships.

MEHRAYIN: It’s a challenge to be as good as we are every week. Being this good is not a guarantee unless we, we, you know, we have the right habits and sometimes we argue and fight and whatnot, but regardless, we’re friends. We win. And we haven’t lost a game all season. And this game was the first game we actually conceded a single goal in the dome. So that’s the expectation that we have for, for ourselves. 

MARSE: What do you think about reffing in intramurals? 

MEHRAYIN: Unacceptable. 

MARSE: Intramural sports serve as a competitive outlet for many students in the campus community. Sometimes these intense feelings of competitiveness needed to be a high school state champion carry over to college and intramurals and that’s OK. But students need to remain cognisant of the impacts of their competitiveness on teammates, opponents and especially the student referees. At the end of the day you are only playing for pride and a T-shirt.

Thank you all for listening to this episode of In The Know. Intramural sports really are a great way to get outside, be competitive and have fun with your friends. I am actually on six teams, and if not for intramurals I think I would be morbidly obese with the way I eat. Because I can’t run if I don’t have a ball in front of me. Anyways that’s besides the point. This episode was written by Atticus Marse and produced by Atticus Marse and Ceci Heinen. If you have any questions, comments or concerns you can reach us at podcasting@mndaily.com. Thank you again for tuning in.