Tech officials said record numbers of students are participating in intramural and coed sports, offering a chance to bond with different people.
Assistant Director of Sport Programs Spencer Ryan said intramurals give students an outlet to play sport. Ryan said the University has also seen a rise in co-ed intramurals.
“We think that men and women playing together and coming together is very important,” Ryan said. “Some men and women might not want to play on a single gendered team where they might have friends of people that are their same gender, so we like to give people a opportunity across the board. Whether to be able to participate with, whether its with women, whether its with men, that doesn’t matter to us we want to give them that opportunity.”
Ryan said intramurals offer other activities that would not necessarily be considered sports, like Mario Kart and spades. Ryan said be believes all students can benefit from intramurals, as cost is included with tuition.
“It gives other students opportunities to be active in intramurals without being in your everyday football softball basketball,” Ryan said. “While we still offer those and those are our biggest, we like to give a variety of activities for students to be able to participate in.”
Ryan said around 3,100 students participated in intramural sports last year.
Ryan said the number of female students in intramurals spiked since adding coed leagues for almost all sports. Ryan said this will be University’s third year of coed flag football.
“It’s able to foster relationships outside of their gender,” Ryan said. “They can play with women and men on the same team. And for high school sports that is not the case. It gets women more involved.”
Ryan said the program employs 50 students as referees and scorekeepers. Ryan said employees are allowed to participate. intramural sports require captains grow communication and leadership skills within their roles.
Some students might not have a campus ministry or fraternity that they are apart of but intramurals is a thing they are apart of,” Ryan said. “And that gives them that community that they need on campus and we see that a lot on our student staff and a lot of our players that participate in a lot of our sports.”
Ryan said the University’s intramurals program attract many students to the University. Ryan said the University is happy the large community it can provide the students.
“I believe students want to come here because of our thriving intramural program,” Ryan said. “They want to have something to be apart of in terms of sport activities while they are also going to class getting there degree. Some universities do not have the same opportunities of a variety of sports and activities, specifically coed.”
