K-State Intramurals

“We offer around 60 sports throughout the season,” Armando Espinoza, the Assistant Director of Recreational Services, said. Some of these sports include flag football, basketball, soccer (indoor and outdoor), volleyball and even inner tube water polo.

With nearly 25,000 students enrolled, it’s no surprise K-State is known for its large student involvement in all of the 60 intramural sports offered.

“We have 255 volleyball teams this year, as compared to KU’s 45 volleyball teams. They have 150 basketball teams, we have 350,” Espinoza said.

“There are facility challenges, but maybe it’s the culture of the student body that makes a difference.”

Tyler Burroughs, Coordinator of Competitive Sports, said, “Those high amounts of teams really speaks to how involved students are at K-State.”

However, shortly after the Chester E. Peters Recreation Complex renovation a few years ago, the number of intramural participants decreased. Espinoza said, “Ultimately, I think the student body was used to a certain pattern and when the expansion was completed, it wasn’t in the students’ mindset to go play sports at the rec liked they used to.”

When the numbers did increase, it was significant, especially with indoor sports. Before the expansion, there was only 40 indoor soccer teams, now there are 130. Espinoza said, “The indoor sports have seen dramatic increases because everyone is getting used to the available facilities.”

In order to accommodate to the growing number of participants, the recreational services needed to expand. “Up until this last year, I was the only person running intramurals,” Espinoza said, “it is a pretty labor extensive thing, so we decided to expand our staff.” This included staff in the main office, as well as student officials.

A large amount of students apply for an officiating positing and contrary to popular belief, they don’t need any experience officiating before applying. In fact, it’s encouraged. Espinoza said, “I prefer if they don’t come from other programs, they might have made bad habits and it limits their ability to grow as an official.”

Learning and growing is an important aspect of the officiating process. Burroughs said, “My primary focus is the hiring, training, development and progression with the student officials.” Burroughs helps plan and run three day trainings for the officials, at the beginning of each season. However, the learning doesn’t end there. Espinoza said, “Once they get through the first official training, we like to say their development is never over.”

“We enforce upon the supervisors that they need to provide feedback every game, every hour, every half,” Espinoza said, “If they aren’t trying to make the officials better, they aren’t doing their job.”

In order to continuously improve, development is key for the K-State intramural program. For instance, Espinoza said, “We are currently embarking on a feasibility study to test the outdoor lights to see if we can increase the availability of fields at night.”

Another improvement made was implementing the IM Leagues software into the intramural program. Espinoza said, “It is hard to put it into quantifying thought on to how much it has improved, but it has made our lives in the office significantly easier.”

The software allows each intramural participant to register and pay online, as well as view their game schedules.

“We used to have to schedule everything by hand and when playoffs came around, we didn’t have the ability to check the availability of people’s teams,” Espinoza said.

Now, schedules and messages can be sent out to every single person on every team with just a click of a button. This allows participants to easily communicate and reschedule games when necessary.

Overall, K-State intramurals play an important aspect into the K-State “family” culture. With the hard work and dedication from the intramural staff, each season offers a chance for students to not only play sports, but also take advantage of other benefits as well.

“Without question, people who use the rec or participate in rec activities tend to have a pretty significant higher GPA than others,” Espinoza said. Also, intramurals give students a break from their busy lives and allow them to play a sport without any worries. Burroughs said, “For some people being competitive and running are good releases.”

With the continuous improvements and innovative staff, K-State intramurals will continue to be a large part of students’ college experience for many years to come.