By Mikenna Barcelona, Staff Writer
Newman University’s latest attempt to get students involved in intramural sports happened again this spring – and it was pretty popular.
Intramural basketball brought about 75 people to Fugate gymnasium last week. Another round happened on Tuesday.
Director of Student Activities Joshua Prilliman, along with representatives from the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and Residence Life, organized the basketball intramurals.
Most of the people who watched and participated in the game lived on campus, said Prilliman, adding that Newman always struggles to get students who live off campus to participate.
One of the students who joined in basketball intramurals was Colby Schreiner, a sophomore from Kingman. Schreiner says intramural basketball has been a blast and had a decent amount of competitive teams playing.
Schreiner said that, as opposed to last year, intramural play was set up as an “open gym,” where groups of people just came together and played. This gave everyone a chance to play multiple games even if they were not on a team.
“People are able to show up and join a team,” Schreiner said.
Prilliman, who graduated from Newman in 2014, said that when he was a student, intramurals were not a thing. He and other students would just get together and play ultimate frisbee on campus or meet in the gym and play basketball.
This year, he said, one of his favorite intramurals was the dodgeball tournament that happened at the beginning of February. Prilliman said it was fun because Ian Lecki, Director of Residence Life, pulled together a staff team and got Candace Davis from Academic Affairs to play.
“She came out, and she's a fireball,” Prilliman said. “She became the crowd favorite, just because of her personality.”
He also liked the dodgeball event for another reason.
“I got to see students interact with people they haven’t met before,” Prilliman said.
Newman has always struggled to get students to participate in intramurals, even though they say they want them, Prilliman said.
“Coaches don’t want their athletes getting hurt, and I am totally okay with that,” he said. “But it just comes down to what the students want to play and who is going to participate.”
Lecki and Prilliman decided in the beginning of January that they needed to make basketball intramurals happen. But they decided to wait until the basketball season was over.
Schreiner, a wrestler at Newman, said he is a big fan of basketball intramurals.
“It’s a great way to bring a variety of students together to play and have fun,” he said. “It’s also fun playing against some of my friends and being able to joke around with them during the games.”
Two more rounds of intramural basketball play will happen this semester: On April 23 and on May 2 in Fugate Gymnasium.
PHOTO: Courtesy photo, Unsplash
