The weather this semester has been everything but normal. The participants in intramurals have been feeling the results of the rainfall as they have not been able to play a complete week of intramurals since school began.
“We have not completed a single major sport yet,” Intramural Director Michelle Wentzel said. “We had to move soccer to Sunday’s and had to add an extra week to football, causing volleyball to start later, as well as they are going to overlap.”
In October alone, there was 5.21 inches of rainfall. October is the wettest month of the semester normally however, this October has been worse than average. The fields get torn up and un-safe to play on which then causes games to be cancelled or re-scheduled. If the players try to play on the fields to early, it may create holes and mud which will make the fields even worse to play on the next time it rains.
“Intramural sports want to provide a safe environment to play in,” Wentzel said. “The field condition does play a part depending where we are at in the semester, at the beginning of the semester we are more cautious knowing that games will be going on through November.”
Re-scheduling games can be a difficult task because there are so many participants that it is hard to please everyone. Students may get frustrated with the movement of games because there is no guarantee that the date the game is re-scheduled to, will work with their schedules.
“It is frustrating that the games keep getting re-scheduled,” Morris Recreation Supervisor Caitlin Mason said. “However no one can control the weather and it is no one’s fault.”
There is also the issue of paying $20 to play a sport and then the possibility of your game getting canceled.
“We feel it is a waste of $20,” Chi Omega Katie McKenna said. “They should refund the money if we can’t play at least 3-4 games.”
Michelle Wentzel mentioned that she is also trying to find an alternative facility to play the games instead of just canceling. She is in the process of looking however, when she finds the facility that will work it will serve as a rain location for all games.
So far, all games have been able to be re-scheduled instead of not making them up and/or cancelling the season completely.