Advice and wisdom from two juniors on the ins and outs of Drake intramurals
By: JD Pelegrino
Now that we are a week and a half into the 2018 academic year at Drake, the real fun starts … intramurals! Drake is consistent every year with intramurals in terms of the number of sports, providing men and women’s brackets, playoffs for every sport and more than one division of competition for most sports.
Every year, hundreds of student athletes compete through Drake’s IM Leagues intramural program, according to imleagues.com. Among the student votes on the IM Leagues homepage for Drake University in 2017-2018, volleyball was voted the favorite sport, followed by soccer, basketball, flag football, innertube water polo and then softball.
Mike VonWald, a junior at Drake,has been working for recreational services since his first year. Last year, he was promoted to the position of complex manager (CM).
“Intramurals give you chances to kind of let go and exercise a sound mind and a sound body,” VonWald said. “You always have options of what you want to do, it’s always really fun to play volleyball, floor hockey, innertube water polo, winning those different championships and having the opportunity to stay athletic and stay healthy.”
Intramurals can also help a student keep their athletic edge by competing in the different divisions Drake has to offer.
“Going into intramurals, you always have the options of the different leagues: the recreational leagues to the fraternity leagues,” VonWald said. “When flag football comes to mind, you have chances to go to regionals, be all-university and things like that.”
Every year, the winner of the fraternity league/division for flag football competes against the all-university team (comprised of non-Greek intramural teams). The winner of that game has the option to advance to regionals, usually held in Lincoln, Nebraska. This provides athletes with the competitive edge they are looking for while just playing intramurals.
Zach Green,a junior at Drake, has played in his share of intramural sports since entering Drake three years ago.
“I am most excited to play innertube water polo this year, because I have a ton of fun with that, it’s not something you see every day,” Green said. “In the fall, it’s volleyball. I love volleyball. Both the fraternity league and co-ed league are really fun.”
Green played volleyball in middle school, but never reached the top competitive levels of the sport through high school or college. Water polo, on the other hand, Green did play in high school. He described regular water polo as more “rough” when being compared to innertube water polo. There is also more going on under the water.
“I love how for every game, there are referees or umpires that kind of know what they are doing,” Green said. “It is really nice to have that sort of ‘professionalist’ to it.”
In Green’s opinion, the intramural program at Drake is run pretty well, and he rarely has a hard time with anything.
To sign up to play intramurals at Drake, visit imleagues.com. From there, all that is required is an email, password and for each participant to enter the school to which they belong. Intramurals run every night of the week, but depending on the sport, times vary as well.
