Intramural (IM) sports are recreational, yet healthily competitive games played between teams composed of people in your house. There are all kinds of sports that you can play, from flag football, basketball, and soccer to fun and inventive sports you may have never heard of, like broomball and innertube water polo. Most of the sports are co-ed, but for some of the sports you can create an all male-identifying or all female-identifying team if you don’t have enough people of both genders to form a co-ed team. IM sports are for anyone who wants to play, no matter the skill level, it’s all just for fun. If you want to play a sport, but you’re worried because you’ve never played it before, go for it! IMs are a great way to try out a new sport and have fun while doing it, no one is going to hold it against you if you make a mistake, so it’s never a bad idea to go out there and play!
To play IM sports, someone in your house, or on your team if you would like to play on an independent team, has to sign your team up on imleagues.com. Afterwards, anyone who wants to play should make an account on imleagues.com and request to join your team. On imleagues.com you can see the full roster for each team and when and where your games will be played. A lot of the sports will fill up pretty quickly, so make sure your team is signed up as soon as possible.
If your team does well in the regular season, which is typically 4-5 games, you can go to the playoffs which are typically two to three more games, then go to the championship. If your team wins the championship or makes the playoffs, you get points towards the Maroon Cup. If, at the end of the year, your team has the most points, you win the Maroon Cup! Last year, our team placed third–we won flag football and lost in the championship for basketball, plus we made the playoffs in several other sports.
IM sports are a great way to have fun, exercise, and hang out with friends! You’ll get a lot closer with your housemates when you’re also a team. IM sports have been one of my favorite parts of UChicago, they’re so much fun, so I definitely encourage everyone to get involved!