Bridgewater, Va. – The intramural sports department at Bridgewater College will be restructured as recommended by the Strategic Resource Allocation report and approved by the board of trustees. Recent events have had especially low attendance and interest. 

“By far the biggest issue for us has been COVID-19,” said Whitney Smith. “Students want to play the traditional tournament style games involving teams, but COVID-19 guidelines can’t allow us to do that.”

“You send the students home to live indoors for six months and they begin to adapt to this new lifestyle where you don’t have to leave your home and now the students are hesitant to come out and participate in our events,” said Smith.  

Another issue the intramural department has faced is a lack of interest and feedback from students. The department feels that developing events to host has been difficult, either because students simply are not interested or because students do not know how to play these new games. 

The department has tried several times to reach out to students to understand what students want to see, however, students have not responded. 

“We know students want to play, we just have to figure out what it is they want to play and it’s hard to do that if they’re not telling us,” said Smith. 

Throughout the semester the intramural department has hosted sporting events focused around one or two person team games such as disc golf, cornhole, home run derbys and free throw competitions. The turnouts have been low and some events have seen no one show up. 

Despite the roadblocks the intramural department has faced, they are looking forward to the future. 

“We know at some point we will be able to return to the popular tournament style sports, it’s just very difficult to estimate when that time will be,” said Smith. 

Changes the intramural department is looking to implement are how the department is run and managed. 

The department is hoping to shift to a platform that is run by students rather than faculty members. This will erase the need for a hired full time staff and will allow students to have more input and be involved in the department that is focused around them. 

Smith believes that this structure will help students be more connected as a school and will make planning events easier since the students know what they want. The department hopes that this will eliminate their issues of getting student input and feedback. 

“We are hopeful that one day everything will be back to normal and we’ll be able to provide to the students the games and tournaments they want, we just just have to make sure we do it at the right time, especially because of COVID-19,” said Smith.