By Martin Paredes/so news editor

Intramural sports provide students a plethora of fun activities for TCC students. 

Students can sign up for football, basketball, dodgeball, softball, soccer and even some less athletic events such as table tennis and bowling.

Coordinators on all campuses praise intramural sports for its ability to provide a safe and fun environment for students to blow off some steam.

“Community college students typically come to class and immediately leave campus,” said SE intramural coordinator Shahzad Nazir. “The intramural sports program gives them a reason to stay on campus, meet new people and have fun participating in activities they enjoy.”

TR is the only campus that doesn’t offer intramurals, but Nicolas Giovannitti advocated a very popular alternative.

“We have a strength and endurance contest that is always very popular.” Giovannitti said. “We give out trophies and things of that nature.”

Details about TR’s event will be announced shortly.

Intramural sports, however, do face some challenges, according to the organizers. Marketing and overall organization were a few of the negatives that were brought up.

“We’ve done things like pass out fliers to help in the marketing department,” said Cassandra Vasquez, the NW coordinator.

Amber Kavehkar of South emphasized that people participating can breed more participation.

“It takes things like word of mouth from people actually doing it to have intramurals grow,” she said.

Laura Bradford of NE found that one-day events saw the most success and were easier to organize.

“For the longest time, we have thought Fridays at noon when the kids get out of school was the best time to do it, but attendance was consistently low,” she said. “We have turned to more of a single-day kind of event. Last semester, we had more success by doing things on Wednesday afternoons because students are in the mood of being on campus.”

Nazir also explained that some help from the district would be appreciated.

“Our biggest challenge has been getting the district to help us maintain field conditions,” he said. “The field conditions at the SE Campus are very poor, and sodding and planting new grass gets very expensive. Plus, the district has a policy against chemical fertilizers and pesticides.”