For the first time this intramural season, students are participating in futsal as opposed to the regular indoor soccer of years past.
Futsal is a variation of soccer that is usually played indoors on a smaller field with fewer players.
“There has been a huge impact on intramurals this season,”Michael Martz, intramural supervisor said. “Now that the women’s basketball team practices in the Special Events Gym we have had to completely change one of our sports.”
“The reason we changed indoor soccer to futsal is to be able to fit more games into one night,” Martz said.
Sheldon Tate, assistant director of campus recreation for TCU, said the transition from indoor soccer to futsal needed to occur so that TCU could accommodate for the women’s basketball team while Daniel Meyer Coliseum is under construction.
“The construction of the Daniel Meyer Coliseum obviously put the men’s and women’s basketball team in a real bind,” Tate said. “And so through that emerged a working relationship with the Special Events Gym in that it would no longer be used just by the volleyball team but the women’s basketball team practice as well.”
The result from the women’s basketball team moving their practice to the Special Events Gym meant there was less allotted scheduling time for intramural indoor soccer, Tate said.
“First off, we lost all but one or two Wednesdays during the time that we would normally play indoor soccer,” Tate said. “What came from this is we had to come up with a different variation for our kids to still play soccer, so we decided to do futsal.”
Tate said not only have the students participating in intramurals been affected by these changes but also the intramural staff has had to adapt to the changes.
“I am fortunate enough to work with a very special group of kids that understand why they are doing what they are doing,” Tate said. “It’s not really about calling fouls or out of bounds, it is really about their own development and I have been fortunate enough to have them see the development that happens and have an appreciation for it.”
The intramural staff not only has to now referee games at a much later time but has to learn how to referee a whole new sport entirely, one that also requires the purchasing of new equipment, Martz said.
“Normally we would start our shifts at 5:30 p.m., but now because of the girls practicing in the SEC we have to start at 8 p.m. and go to midnight,” said Martz.
“It has affected me by having to teach the refs variations on a sport that they aren’t used to working with. Additionally, it has affected our work by having to buy new equipment, such as goals and balls, to make this sport happen.”
Hunter Harrison, an intramural referee, said “some nights we do not get done breaking down the courts until after midnight which is after the rec closes, causing other employees delays with their night.”
Harrison said that in the long run, the current situation would not be a good one but for the time being everything was able to run smoothly.
“In the end it is more money than we would have spent on indoor soccer, but in the grand scheme of things, everybody has to give a little bit to make this thing work,” Tate said.
“The women’s basketball team is important and we want them to be successful just like we want intramural sports to be successful, so I think we have a good working solution and I am certainly not complaining at all.”