Brooms, Nets And Inner Tubes: Obscure Intramural Sports

By Christy Flom on February 16, 2015

In college, intramural sports are a great way to make friends and stay active. They can help make a big school small, and it is up to you and your team to decide how competitive to be, making it easy for a large majority of students to participate.

With so many different sports available, it is very manageable for students to play on more than one team in a season if they are up for the challenge. Since the games are typically an hour long, staying on top of schoolwork is a very feasible feat, especially compared to the lives of varsity sport athletes.

However, these are not your everyday childhood, societally determined “normal” sports. There are of course some standard sports like basketball, flag football, soccer and tennis but there are also obscure sports that are unknown to people outside of college campuses.

Different names of just several of these sports include “Wallyball,” “Inner Tube Water Polo,” and “Broomball.” Each of the three games use unusual rules and objects to create unique and entertaining sports.

Image by Lynne Nelson via Flickr.com

When I first played Wallyball my freshman year, I whole-heartedly believed my friends had signed me up for a water volleyball league.

To my dismay, it was sadly not water volleyball, instead the “w” stood for wall, which looking at the spelling of Wallyball was fairly obvious to everyone except me.

My dismay turned to confusion at first when I followed my friends into what I can only describe as a squash room with a net in the middle.

After warming up, I realized this was a simple game, very similar to the actual sport of volleyball. The only catch is that you are allowed to play off the sidewalls. This means you can serve, hit, set, or bump against any wall except the back wall.

The catch is that you can only hit it against the wall once, just like every player can only hit the ball once in a row. This sounds easier and simpler than it is, because with four walls, a bad angle or too much force could redirect the ball to another wall, which would then be an automatic point for the opposing team.

People who have played volleyball before, especially in high school or on a club team have a clear advantage in this game. Once the players get the hang of implementing the walls, it becomes just like playing a crazy game of volleyball on a smaller court.

Inner Tube Water Polo is much less confusing to understand from the name what the game entails. Played in a pool, the sport is water polo but with the added difficulty of sitting bottom-down on top of an inner tube for the duration of the game. In this no-contact game, seven players on each team compete for two 30 minute halves and the team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

I played a slightly different version of this game on a lake with some friends over the summer and I can personally attest to how fun and engaging this game is. Trying to maintain control of the ball is pretty difficult while using your arms and legs in the tube like a crazy person trying to move back and forth in the water faster than a snail.

Despite the game taking some time for each player to figure out how to best maneuver in the tube, I would highly encourage all college students to add this game to their bucket lists to play before they graduate.

Lastly, Broomball is yet another example of an obscure intramural sport. As a mixture of Harry Potter and ice hockey this is probably the most extraneous of the intramural sports available at most colleges.

This game reminds me of Harry Potter because players all use broom-like sticks, but they are unfortunately on the ground and used like hockey sticks rather than flying machines.

Image of a Michigan and Ohio State alumni game via Aaron Webb from Flickr.com

Played on ice, this is one of the more dangerous intramural sports, but also one of the most fun as players struggle to stay on their feet and direct a ball with their broom.

To play, all players must wear a helmet with a full-face mask. Any shoes that increase traction on the ice like cleats or hiking boots are illegal but players are encouraged to bring protective gear such as hockey gloves and pads.

The brooms are used as sticks and they are hitting a ball, not a hockey puck. The game is started by a face off and consists of two 30 minute halves, just like Inner Tube Water Polo. Players can use their hands and feet to stop and control the ball, too, but they cannot use anything but the broom to score or pass the ball.

There are so many ways to become involved in intramural sports and to have fun with a group of friends and stay active. Hopefully everyone gets the opportunity to try out some of these eccentric sports at one time or another in their college career.

Students interested in bringing more sports to their school should also look into the new and exciting game of Spikeball and their ambassador program. More information about Spikeball can be found here.

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