The Athletics Department's decision to hold "open gym time" in lieu of a winter intramural season was implemented without any major problems, but intramural diehards remain frustrated that they'll have to wait until late March for the spring season to begin.
"They took away something that we loved," senior David Attewell said. "Yeah, we know that the winter season had its flaws, but we'd rather have that than nothing at all."
Attewell and a few friends showed up on Jan. 24 for the first open gym time session, when Director of Intramural Sports Cheryl Milligan reserved both the Cousens and Chase courts for basketball, by far the most popular intramural sport.
The approximately 30 athletes who came out for the debut of open gym agreed that while having an open gym doesn't hurt, the replacement does not come close to replicating the intense atmosphere of an intramural season, which includes official rosters, score−keeping and an eventual champion.
"It seems like every other school has a super efficient system, almost as intense as a club or varsity team," senior Chris Nolop said. "That's what we wanted."
Many other NESCAC schools boast intramural programs that last for the entire school year. Bowdoin runs three intramural basketball leagues and three intramural hockey leagues during the winter. Middlebury has basketball, ice hockey, indoor soccer and dodgeball leagues, as well as a league for a sport called broomball, which involves brooms, an ice rink and sneakers and generally seems like a blast.
"People really enjoy intramurals here. For me it's a way to keep playing sports that I played in high school," Greg Dorris, a sophomore at Middlebury who plays on a intramural hockey team, said.
Milligan, who is the sole administrator for a program that included hundreds of students last year, announced in November that she had cancelled Tufts' winter league due to space issues in Cousens and the Gantcher Center. Varsity sports, such as lacrosse and track and field, practice in these venues until the weather warms up.
"The time that we have right now just isn't enough," Milligan said. "We need about six hours to run a full intramural schedule, and we don't have that time."
This lack of space likely will be fixed with the construction of the Athletics Department's new fitness center. Athletic Director Bill Gehling told the Daily in December that he hopes to break ground on the project this spring and open next fall. The centerpiece of the proposed three−story building is a fitness facility that will supplement the existing Chase Gym.
"This is not a money issue or an equipment issue," Milligan said. "It's a facilities issue. If we had more facilities, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
