Ripon College Days

"IM's rock!" is a phrase that can only be heard on Ripon's campus. Regardless of the season, Ripon offers a range of wildly popular and enjoyable intramural sports, or IM's, for campus sports enthusiasts.

Choices for campus intramural sports range across the board. Students can get involved with the more normal sports, think along the lines of softball, to the not so normal, such as innertube water polo. But it seems no matter what the sport, Ripon students show up in big numbers. According to IM supervisor Sandy Patrowsky, a junior, the enrollment numbers continue to rise.

"Fall softball is up by a lot," she says. "We usually have five of six teams, but this year we have eight."

She adds that the men's flag football division has also added two teams.

Patrowsky attributes the interest in IM sports to the unique opportunity it provides students. "[IM sports] give students the chance to go out and do something with their friends," she says. "It makes you get with six of your friends and do something active, and a lot of students are looking for something like that."

Patrowsky's co-IM supervisor, senior Nicole Erikson, agrees. "With Ripon being such a small town, it gives students a chance to get out and do something beyond what a small town has to offer," she says.

Senior Nicole Kaplan has participated in all of the IM sports during her four years at Ripon. Kaplan cites the variant levels of competition as her main reason for choosing intramurals. "In high school I played softball, rugby and soccer," she says, "but I got injured too much to play any varsity sports here, so IM's are perfect because they're competitive enough, but they're also a lot safer."

Kaplan's sentiments echo the reasons for participating Patrowsky's heard from other students.

"A lot of first years come out of high school and they start to miss playing sports. IM's give them one way to still compete without making the commitment to a [varsity] team," she says.

Erikson also believes the structure of the competition attracts both amateurs and former athletes alike. "The way our sports are structured, with our A, B and C leagues, you can really just get together a rec team and have fun, and that's what a lot of people want. But we also have the A and B leagues for students who want to be more competitive," she says. "It's competition in a low-pressure environment."

Competition is the perfect word to describe the fall intramural sports as the season draws to a close. In the men's flag football league the brothers of Sigma Chi have edged narrowly ahead of the rest of the participants. Softball also remains tight, with no clear winner yet able to be determined during seasonal play. The Intimidating Flying Squirrels remain comfortably atop the women's flag football field.

Both softball and flag football seasons run through the second week of October. Winners will receive the highly coveted IM championship tee-shirts.

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