May 19, 2015

TRADITIONS: It’s all fun and games (seriously)

David Chinappi ’16 prepares to fire the ball toward the net as Darragh Quinn ’17 tries to stop him in team handball.

Photography by Jason Evans; archival photos from the Office of Special and Archival Collections.

What happens on a college campus where 75 percent of the student body played varsity sports in high school?

Intense intramural competition, that’s what.

More than half of all Providence College students take part in at least one of the 23 intramural sports offered through the Department of Recreational Sports. In addition to the traditional offerings such as basketball, soccer, and softball, they include table tennis, handball, kickball, Wallyball, dodgeball, badminton, Ultimate Frisbee, and water polo.

On a busy night in the fall semester, it’s not uncommon to have all three courts in use in the Peterson Recreation Center, water polo going on in the pool, and soccer and flag football taking place outdoors, said Nick Sweatt ’10 & ’12G, assistant director of recreational sports/intramurals.

The Intramural Athletic Board (IAB) is the governing body of PC intramurals. Nineteen students are selected to staff the board, which organizes events and assigns the 60 to 80 students who work as game officials.

“Definitely, game play gets very intense,” said Sweatt, who also hears all appeals. “Our supervisors undergo a three-day training early in the semester to go over situations and make sure things don’t get out of hand.”

The goal of every intramural participant is to win the coveted T-shirt that is the mark of an intramural champion. Students have been heard to tell visitors that PC students are so honest they would never steal a cell phone or laptop left behind on a table — but an intramural T-shirt would disappear in a flash.

The national average for intramural participation at colleges is 18 percent, Sweatt said. At PC, “Our students just still have that drive to compete,” he said.