By Peter Sblendorio
Video by Matt French and Robert Brancheau
Since their institution in 2008, intramural sports have typically boasted a healthy of mix of participants who play sports at Coppell and those who do not.
This is not the case in the 2010 spring intramural sports of dodgeball and Ultimate Frisbee, however, as varsity baseball and football players at Coppell were unable to participate due to obligations to their sports.
Baseball was entrenched in the area playoffs during the last two weeks before being eliminated by South Grand Prairie on May 14, and the CHS football team recently extended its after school practices for spring football. Because of these factors, neither sport allowed its players to play intramurals, and this greatly affected the dynamic of the extracurricular league.
In the fall season, intramural dodgeball was dominated by a team, appropriately named Coppell Baseball made up entirely of varsity baseball players. Coppell Baseball was able to win the league with its only loss coming from Fresh to Death, a team made up of five football players who were also unable to play this spring.
“We were disappointed that we couldn’t defend our championship,” Coppell Baseball junior Sam Swinton said. “But because intramurals take time out of the day and can take a toll on your body, we weren’t able to play.”
The baseball players were naturally gifted in the sport of dodgeball, as the strong throwing arms and quick reflexes they exhibit in baseball translated well. Sports like dodgeball and Ultimate Frisbee both also bode well for football players, whose year-long training has put them in peak physical condition.
With their absence from the intramural league, students that do not play varsity sports have been given a greater opportunity to compete for a title and win a coveted intramural champion tee shirt.
“Theirs pros and cons [to having no baseball or football players playing],” junior Michael Hays, who has played intramural dodgeball times three times, said. “The kids who don’t play sports at a high level get a chance to shine. That said, their absence has taken away a lot of the competition.”
Ultimate Frisbee has also been affected by the coinciding schedules of varsity players. While baseball players have had the opportunity to play Frisbee since their games were moved from Tuesday to the weekend for the playoffs, football players were unable to sign up for a chance to pass the disc due to their demanding spring football practice regimen.
While both sports still had a reasonable amount of teams sign up to play, the difference in level of competition has been undeniable in the absence of varsity baseball and football.
“Sports that are in season did limit the number of teams,” assistant principal Sean Bagley said. “[This] has given another group a chance to have more success or maybe even win since some of these [in sport athletes] could not make teams.”
The quality of competition in Coppell’s intramurals has been clearly different without the typical plethora of varsity athletes inhabiting rosters, and this has resulted in an increased opportunity for students who do not play sports for the school to succeed.
