With the current global COVID-19 pandemic forcing students to self-quarantine and social distance, contact sports has been put on hold. Lamar University’s intramural sports program has followed the lead of the NBA, MLB and the NCAA and canceled face-to-face activities.
As a result, intramural sports has expanded their existing e-games program and added virtual events such as workout challenges, Kahoot games and virtual Netflix watch parties.
“Yes, we will miss that in-person interaction with our participants, because we enjoy seeing them taking part and having fun with our events, but we feel that it is necessary to help our participants take their mind off all that is going on and be able to pass the time and win some prizes,” Jason Harrington, Intramurals and Sport Club Coordinator, said.
Harrington said did not take long for the intramural sports program to make the shift to e-games.
“It took a couple of days to survey our staff for ideas and research the games,” Harrington said. “We've always had sports game on consoles, so it was just seeing what other non-sports games would be popular we add those. We are also transitioning to mobile games where they can play on their phone or tablets.”
The e games program started as in-person video game tournaments and adopted the challenge ladder system they have for their other intramural sports, such as table tennis and badminton.
“We started Intramural e-games about 13 years ago with Nintendo Wii Sports tournaments in summer of 2007,” Harrington said. “We saw the turnout for them, and many were asking about Xbox tournaments. We purchased a few Xbox Systems and coordinated in person tournaments for a few years for all the major sports games. It got to be tough finding the games to rent and keep up with the new systems.
“We already had the challenge ladder system going for racket sports like tennis, table tennis, badminton etc., so we decided to give it a shot with e-games. We did all the major sports games for both PlayStation and Xbox. It has helped us offer a wider range of games and opportunities for participants to meet other gamers that they challenge and play against.”
Harrington said he expects a big turnout, especially as intramurals is collaborating with the Cardinal Activities Board for prizes.
“We are hoping to have our largest turnout yet,” Harrington said. “We have reached out to the Res Halls and we will have our fliers around their buildings for the students still living on campus to take part in. We will be able to provide trophies to all the winners of each game and we will have prize drawings that everyone that signs up will be entered in. Our Intramural champ shirt will also go to the winner of each game. We will ship the prizes to all winners so they will be able to receive them no matter where they are.”
Harrington said the e-games and virtual events will continue in the future.
“We already are working on our summer and fall schedules and we have all (e-games) planned again, especially the new games and non-sports games we will continue to offer,” Harrington said. “We are always open to suggestions and whatever we can do to improve our programming. So, we always welcome new ideas.”
The deadline to sign up for e-games and virtual events is April 30, and participants may sign up at imleagues.com.