Around 6,000 students get active on campus, competing for the coveted intramural champion t-shirt each school year.

Joining an intramural team gives students a chance to be physically active, make new friends and win a t-shirt if they win their division.

“For freshman it’s a really nice opportunity to take to get to know people,” Rob Cramer, Associate Director of Intramural Sports, said. “We have a lot of teams that sign up that are just composed of people from a particular floor of a residence hall. Maybe they don’t know each other very well but they sign up for a basketball team or a softball team and they get to know each other pretty darn well because they have to play as a team every week.”

“I thought playing intramurals was a good experience, I didn’t meet any one new because I played spring semester of my freshman year, but it was still a good experience,” Junior Matt Seckel said.

Playing intramural sports can also help students avoid the freshman 15 and points them in the right direction to better physical health. Cramer said that intramural sports students often become familiar with the rec center and continue to come back on their own to work out.

For these reasons the program is popular with just under 30 percent of all students directly participating.

“Between a fourth and a third of every student on campus is involved in our program at some point,” Cramer said. “When you compare that to other universities it’s a lot, it’s a very stout number which we are proud of.”

There are a variety of sports offered by the program and many students play more than one sport. Students can choose from sports that may be familiar to them such as volleyball or flag football or they may try something new like ultimate frisbee or innertube water polo.

Flag football always has the greatest number of teams. Out of the 1,195 teams involved last year 180 of them were flag football teams. However, Cramer encouraged students to get involved in the lesser known sports if they have even a slight interest.

“I have a feeling that a lot of students, freshman especially, they might look at these sports and never have heard of wallyball and are not interested,” Cramer said. “I have met very few people who have signed up for the lesser known sports and are not happy with them. They almost always have fun.”

While freshman are encouraged to join a team to get better acquainted with the University, students living off-campus often form teams.

“The huge marjority of Bowling Green State University students live within easy access of the University itself even if they are not on campus, so we do see plenty of participation from both people on campus and off-campus,” Cramer said.

“Even though I am living off campus I’ll probably still play,” Seckel said. “It’s something fun and free to do where you come and hang out with your friends.”

Students living off campus who are playing with a familiar group of friends may want to sign up for a competitive division. Freshman looking to have fun and meet people may want to join a non competitive division.

Students wanting to sign up for an intramural team in either division can fill out a hard copy or sign up online. Sign up sheets can be found in residence halls or at 103 Perry Field House.