If you are similar to most Wildcat students, you are likely an intelligent and well-rounded individual who typically accomplishes what they set out to do.

You are also a competitive individual both in the classroom and on the field and played a sport in high school. What better way to keep yourself in shape, make new friends and have fun than by playing intramural sports?

As fun as it is to lift weights or run on the treadmill, it’s often packed at the Student Recreation Center, making it difficult to complete your workout within a given amount of time.

While 55 percent of students participate in a sport in high school, only 7 percent get to participate at the collegiate level so intramurals are a great alternative to keep your competitive juices flowing.

Some students such as Megan Lucena, a senior studying accounting and criminal justice, cannot get enough of sports, whether it was high school, when she lettered in basketball, golf, and track and field, or intramurals, where she participated in co-ed flag football, basketball, kickball and volleyball.

“I enjoy them for lots of reasons,” Lucena said. “I guess because I played in high school and missed playing the sports, it is way more fun than working out, and I like meeting other people who like and play sports.”

With class, homework, jobs and internships, having enough time to play a sport at the intercollegiate level is almost impossible. Fortunately, intramurals typically only meet once a week at night, so they can accommodate your busy schedule.

“Intramural sports allow me to get back into a game that I used to play but no longer have enough time to do,” said Corey Bobroski, an intramural volleyball player and senior studying accounting and communications. “It is my escape from life, getting back to a game that I loved all my life.”

Many of us like to picture ourselves as former standouts at our sport, even if we didn’t play, and this gives us an opportunity to show our friends how talented we were in high school. Although we will never admit it, we want to be the prodigy of our friend group and being the star on our intramural team is a great ego boost.

Club sports often get confused with intramural sports, but just think of a club sport as above intramural, but below an intercollegiate sport like the men’s football team or women’s basketball team.

Club sports, such as the hockey and lacrosse teams, go toe-to-toe with teams from other schools, while intramurals compete against other teams within
the university.

Whereas intramural participants usually only meet once a week on game day, those in club sports practice multiple times a week, have fundraisers and hold team meetings.

If you also love the sport from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the UA provides a Quidditch team that competes against other universities, and there’s even a national championship for the
respected sport.

The different seasons for intramurals also give you the opportunity to test out multiple unique sports such as Floor Hockey, Inner-Tube Water Polo and Whiffle Ball to
name a few.

For all of the athletes that couldn’t quite get to university to play intercollegiate sports, intramurals at the UA gives students the opportunity to lace up their sneakers or cleats once more. With all the papers, exams and deadlines in college, sometimes a game of your favorite sport can be the ultimate getaway from all the stress college
can produce.