There are many intramural sports offered at BGSU. Anything from traditional games such as volleyball and tennis to your more obscure pastimes like whiffleball and dodgeball. One sport stands above the rest though in bringing out wanna-be pros and your average Joe’s and that of course is flag football.
We’ve all seen them at one point or another out in the freezing cold playing a game that ultimately leads to a prize of T-shirts if you’re good enough to be the best. So why is it so popular?
“It’s part of the culture,” said Intramural Director Scott Sehman. “It promotes competition, and I think a lot of students enjoy it for the social aspect and the opportunity to compete in an organized way.”
“You play it in high school and it’s just fun to be competitive, to play to win,” said Anthony Carson of “Da Browns.”
“Football is so big in America and it’s a chance for a bunch of people who weren’t good enough to play in college to compete and relive old glory days,” said Kyle Reed of the appropriately named team “I Can’t Feel My Face.”
Flag football, along with the other intramural sports, is also an outlet for a team’s creativity. Teams may select their team names sometimes by giving a shout out to Television or movies such as “Hurricane Ditka” (SNL) or “Globo Gym Purple Cobras” (Dodgeball) and “Team Ramrod” (Super Troopers). Other teams lean towards a favorite sports teams like “The Bears” or “Suck a Buck Michigan.” Then there are the completely out there names, but nonetheless lovable, such as “The Dikfurs”, “The Magic Brownies” and “Short Bus Heroes”.
Luckily for some of the teams, this year Sehman didn’t have to decline any potential team names.
“I draw a line at a certain point, but I was a little more on the generous end than the conservative end this year,” Sehman said. “I have had to decline names in the past though.”
Along with the crazy team titles, sometimes players get out of hand on those cold October nights, but thanks to a new Team Sportsmanship Rating System, Sehman has had to discipline fewer students this year. There haven’t been any ejections in games this year.
“That’s not to say it can’t and won’t happen though,” Sehman said knocking on his wooden desk.
There have been situations in the past where students have broken limbs playing or campus police have being called in and players taken away in cuffs.
“Some teams take things way too seriously,” said Adam Cordes of “Asian Invasion.”
In the spirit of camaraderie, some teams put time aside for pre-game get-togethers.
“Our whole team comes over and we usually have a big pot of chili, but tonight we had pork chops,” said Jace Walker of “Invasion.”
Other teams go as far as dressing as a team such as “Da Browns” who all wear laminated team plays under the arm bands they wear as well as identical gold and blue number seven jerseys that they all bought at Steve and Barry’s.
There are currently 15 intramural sports offered in the Fall at BG. Sehman is considering adding a few more, including dodgeball as a full season sport, badminton, a bench press competition and cornhole in the Spring.
The best thing about all of BG’s intramural sports is that they are completely free to any student.
“We have facilities that are just as good as any of the bigger schools in the state and we don’t charge any participation fees, which I think is a unique niche,” Sehman said.
