Rules and regulations must be followed to form an intramural team

Intramural sports are a way for college students across the nation to stay active, do something competitive, make new friends and get connected to the school. Although intramurals are said to be for everyone, there are rules and regulations that have to be followed when creating a team.

In order to be eligible to compete on any intramural team at southeast students must have an IM League account on imleagues.com. There is also a rules test that the captain must pass in order to set up a team.

"When you set up a team you have to take a rules test and that happens before you can even sign up your team," said Jennifer Rose, Assistant Director of sports, youth and family programs. "All of our rules and [our] handbook, which has all the general policies and procedures is on IM leagues. Once you pass the test you can now create your team."

In order to be a part of an intramural team at Southeast you must have an IM leagues account.

"Captains can send out invites to anyone on IM leagues that they want to join the team, or they can have people request to join the team and accept them that way," Rose said. "We also have a free agent area, so if you have four players on a team but need additional members for a certain sport you can go on and ask those additional players if they want to join the team."

According to Rose, the captain only has to have your team signed up and paid for by the deadline. The team does not have to have all the members on the roster at this point. Students are required to have school IDs at every single game.

"You can play your first game without being on IM leagues and being on that roster," Rose said. "But before you play your second game, at least 24 hours in advance, you have to be on the online roster."

There are always basic rules that need to be followed with any sport or activity. What most do not know is that when it comes to intramural sports at Southeast Missouri State University student athletes have other regulations applied to them when it comes to playing on these teams.

"It is an NCAA violation, if the baseball team went and played intramurals that would be a violation on the NCAA side," Rose said. "They have strict rules and policies in the seasons the athletes can train, and how early and late they can train to be eligible. ... The policy is also there because we don't want stacked teams, as this is intramural sports."

In addition to NCAA rules, student athletes, and club team members are not allowed to compete in that specific sport or ones of similar caliber the year of their final season.

"A former athlete can not play a similar sport within the same year that they competed," Rose said. "There are certain sports that are affiliated, baseball players cannot play dodge ball. Sports that give them the distinct advantage in the same year that they graduate."

After the student athlete has sat out a year after graduation the rules for what sports they can partake in change a little.

"They have to play in the highest league possible, they have to play in the competitive league not the recreational," Rose said. "There is also limitations depending on the players on the court or field on how many athletes or sport club members you can have on your team."

Jerel Bobbitt, the captain of the club basketball team at Southeast, along with other members of his SEMO Magic intramural team were affected by these rules when it came to playing intramurals at Southeast.

"We were able to play intramurals as long as a team did not protest against our team during anytime of the season," Bobbitt said. "During our final game of the regular season we beat Omega Falcon and they protested against our team after the game was over for having more than three sport club members on our roster. So we were forced to drop members from the team in order to continue to play intramurals."

According to Bobbitt, a lot of the competitive teams have players at the same skill level as the members of the club basketball team.

"Instead of dropping a player off the roster I decided to let everyone play because we've been playing together for so long and we've only been an official club sport for one semester," Bobbitt said. "After I made the decision to let everyone who was a sport club member on the roster play during the playoffs it did not sit well with the Sport Coordinator and we were kicked out of the league."

There are two different levels that can be played for intramural sports, competitive and recreational. Greeks have their own division they can participate in for intramural sports.

"There are some sports that playing competitive or recreational league kind of bleed into each other," Rose said. "Anybody who doesn't have a lot of experience or only have one or two players with experience and are just out there to have fun I would recommend going into the recreational league. A team that has former high school athletes or have played together for several years should go on the competitive side."