By Nick Cook | Web Editor
Intramurals are a great way to get involved in the Baylor community, meet new people and find friends. However, intramurals are separated by gender, and only a few coed sports are offered each semester: Spikeball, wiffle ball, sand volleyball and kickball.
Offering more coed sports would allow more students to get involved on campus. More students who want to participate alone or don’t have friends who want to do athletics would be able to get drafted as a free agent.
Most fraternities and sororities claim the available team spots in the gender-specific sports and then work together to claim the available spots in the coed sports. If Baylor offers more coed intramurals along with its current selection of sports, more students who don’t have the ability to create complete teams would be able to participate and create teams of single players.
Students would probably be more likely to participate if they knew they would have a chance to play or actually be on a team with others who don’t know each other. I know that from my experience, I have wanted to play sports with my girlfriend, but there were no options that we were both interested in playing. Coed team events would be a great addition to intramurals.
Offering very minimal coed options could potentially come from a concern that there will not be enough participation. However, this is not a great excuse. The point of intramurals is to find a community and have fun with it.
Don’t get me wrong — I want to win. However, the time I played ultimate frisbee on a team of all free agents was fun. I did not know anyone on that team, but we all wanted to play, and we all had fun.
While it was not coed, the point still stands that these teams of free agents are able to promote the idea of intramural sports more than the idea of just letting fraternities and sororities take most available spots and compete for the Greek cup.
Ultimately, more coed sports would be something that encourages more students to get involved, make friends and be active.
