Intrams Advisory

We have successfully reached the peak of intramurals season. Balls are flying through the air, bats are swinging and scrabble tiles litter the floor. Let’s not forget training has become rigorous, practices have become all-nighters and brain cells are working at a mile a minute.

It’s really no surprise when coaches or team captains begin to turn into total hotheads, or worse, modern-day Hitlers. Fields become bloody battlegrounds, and teams find themselves in concentration camps.

Talk about sucking the fun out of intramurals.

Its practices like these that I don’t join ball games. I’d rather pop a blood vessel thinking up 7-letter words than bother myself with hotheaded teammates, coaches or team captains.

I know this sounds so cliché and over-used, and preached by every Physical Education teacher all over the world, but Intramurals are supposed to be all about fun and games, building camaraderie and friendship with the other courses and in the process, learning how to exercise.

Note to all captains, chill, man chill! For crying out loud, it’s not the Olympics!

I never find winning important. Sure, being awarded first place allows you to gloat and flaunt your shiny medal (or trophy), but it’s not that important.

I enjoy practices more than I enjoy winning – which in reality, doesn’t happen often. I’m quite unlucky. But you don’t see me stalking the hallways like a crazy person, demanding from my team to play better, screaming at them for putting down 4 letter words instead of 5.

As a team captain, I only demand one thing from the team: have fun.

To hell with winning.

I’d rather have one good laugh with my teammates than win a hundred times – especially if it meant turning into Hitler and causing them scrabble nightmares. Scrabble practices, by the way, are made of sharing lame text jokes, getting hit by stray softballs, laughing over lame jokes, and putting down the occasional 7-letter words all the while exchanging ghost stories during sundown. I don’t turn over scrabble boards, make teammates do pushups and I definitely don’t make them eat their own words. However, jokes have been made that the entire team should start practices with warm-ups, stretches and running around the field.

Seriously though, hardcore intramurals players should learn to relax – especially the captains. It’s just a game, if you loose, it’s not the end of the world. It just proves that you need more practice, that’s all.

Intrams advisory to all the killer coaches or team captains out there: get a life and have fun. There’s no point in torturing your team and sucking out all the fun of intrams. Besides, I’m sure you’re slowly pissing off your entire team and the last thing that you want to happen is a team mutiny and be pelted with balls, chess pieces, or scrabble tiles.

Have fun and enjoy the game. And don’t kill the team.