Canoes crowd the pool and teams sling water at each other, players draw cards and participants make their Fantasy Football picks, all in pursuit of one thing: An “Intramural Sports Champion” T-Shirt.
NC State Wellness and Recreation has a variety of intramural sports offerings, including short-term special events that push the boundaries of what’s considered a sport.
Among the more conventional intramural offerings of soccer and flag football, a few one-day tournaments stand out: pool battleships, Texas hold ‘em, fantasy football, chess and cornhole, to name a few.
“We offer as much programming as possible to reach as many students who, due to schedules, may only be able to participate in one event that’s held for one day as compared to weekly programming that happens for seven to eight weeks,” said Quintin Terry, a Wellness and Recreation sports program coordinator.
Terry is a part of the three-person team that organizes the intramural sports that Wellness and Recreation holds every semester.
In August, Wellness and Recreation kicked off the fall semester with a cornhole tournament featuring over 30 teams. In early September, the intramural program hosted three fantasy football leagues and held a 12 team Spikeball tournament at Miller Fields.
One of Wellness and Recreation’s signature special events is pool battleship, which it has hosted for over five years.
Pool battleship involves teams of four in canoes, and each team member has either a “shield,” typically a box lid, or a bucket. The goal? Shovel as much water into your opponent’s boat while keeping your own afloat.
This semester’s iteration of pool battleship was held Sept. 21 in the Casey Aquatic Center with multiple hour-long heats.
Lily Ardrey, a third-year studying environmental sciences, participated in pool battleship for her second year. Ardrey is the president of Epsilon Eta, an honors environmental service fraternity, which had four teams representing the organization for this year’s competition.
“It’s just really fun to be with a group of people that you know and love, and battling it out in a pool,” Ardrey said. “Our fraternity, we’re not big athletic people. So we try to do the weirder [sports].”
Charlie Buss, a third-year studying fashion textile management, helped manage the special event for the third year as a Wellness and Recreation Sports Programs program assistant.
“It’s just a fun event that you know, people that don’t typically play a sport or something and they just want to have fun — it’s a perfect opportunity for that,” Buss said.
The special events will continue this semester with Texas hold ‘em. The first tournament was hosted on Oct. 6, and a second tournament is planned for Nov. 17.
In November, Wellness and Recreation will also host table tennis tournaments and a dodgeball competition as a part of the special events series.
While poker, chess or fantasy football tournaments may not seem like they fall under the typical definition of a sport, Terry said they help to broaden the Wellness and Recreation approach to intramurals.
“Not all activities that we offer for intramural sports and special events [have physicality] as a demand,” Terry said. “So using the mind as well, especially when it comes to poker … It provides us an avenue to reach others who may not want to participate in our physical sport offerings.”
For those who missed out on the special events already held for this semester, there’s good news — Wellness and Recreation typically keeps the special event schedule consistent from semester to semester.
“We found success and appreciation from our participants to have a schedule that is pretty much identical to the last semester, and just keep consistency there,” Terry said.
From the pro-athletes to the less athletically inclined, there’s an intramural for everyone — and maybe a free T-shirt at the end of it for the lucky winners.
