The Recreation and Leisure department met on Wednesday to discuss the intramural rule that is causing so much stir around campus. The recreation staff wanted to explain the reasons they instated the rule.
When the campus recreation and leisure department were making the new rules they did it specifically to conform to the NIRSA rules. Every sports season they take the highest ranking intramural team and send them to the PIRSA (Pennsylvania Intramural Recreation Sports Association) tournament where they play other schools best teams.
In order to try and make these tournaments fair they try and keep the rules at WCU as similar as they are when they are at the tournaments, and that is by keeping up with NIRSA rules.
The new rule that is causing the most stir is directed at Co-Recreation only, mostly Soccer.
Lorne Leyes, the Co-President of Recreation and Leisure says that “we felt like men went from the men’s only games to co-rec and were just putting random girls on the roster to fill spots.” By making the new rule they were trying to make sure that the girls became more than just a name on a roster.
Ian Booth, Drew Cohen, and Sara Miraglia, also Rec and Leisure Executive board members, agreed with Leyes.
They want the players to be more than just quota fillers, especially when it comes to the free agents. Most of the female free agents were placed on teams that were full of males that were all friends and the females were pretty much neglected on the fields. Leyes even asked a guy on one of the teams “If you had the ball who would you pass it to?” He got the response that it would be to “his boy cause he’s better.” Leyes explains that this is one of the reasons that the rule is in the first place instead.
“We didn’t start the rule to give the girls extra help; we did it to make sure everyone was equal,” Leyes said.
The executive board just asks that everyone give the rule a fair chance. Miraglia says that she believes that “the girls should use it to their advantage.”
However, if after giving the rule a fair shot, it still receives negative responses, there will be a player and staff end of season evaluation that asks the players what they think should be added, or changed, and students are free to speak out then.
Jackie Valentino is a fourth -year student majoring in English with a minor in journalism. She can be reached at JV671648@wcupa.edu.