The number of students involved in intramural sports at St. Joe’s nearly doubled this fall after a year of declining participation.
Flag football and volleyball, the two fall intramural sports that Campus Recreation offers, had 126 participants last fall. This fall, 220 athletes are involved in the two sports.
Alex Kissinger, recreation coordinator for Campus Recreation, said she made a deliberate attempt to revamp the program this year and better advertise it to encourage more participation.
“My thought process is, the more people that play this season, if they enjoyed it, then they’ll tell more people for the next season,” said Kissinger, who added that students can join intramurals as a “free agent” or with an already established team.
Nick Palermo ’22, a two-year participant in flag football, said he has noticed Campus Recreation’s efforts.
“Even just last year compared to this year, there’s just been so much more attention given to it, and it’s such an improvement,” Palermo said.
Last season, Palermo said he had to seek out intramural information by searching the Campus Recreation website. This year, there were advertisements on Instagram, on flyers in the residence halls and on the digital monitors in Campion Student Center.
Palermo said one upshot of more attention to the program is that his team has had more opportunity to play.
“Last year my team only had two games and one forfeit, and this year we’ve got to play five games, and there’s also playoffs and the refs are better trained,” Palermo said.
Teams this year play a minimum of five games, then compete in playoffs against fellow St. Joe’s teams. The winner will go on to compete in the Philadelphia City 6 on Nov. 23, playing against Villanova University, La Salle University, Temple University, Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania for the flag football city championship.
Intramural volleyball, like flag football, has games every Sunday afternoon. Volleyball teams play a minimum of seven games. At the end of the season, playoffs will be held against other St. Joe’s teams. The St. Joe’ champion will play against the other Philadelphia City 6 teams on Dec. 7 for the volleyball city championship.
Alex Sorensen ’20, an RA, is a member of an intramural volleyball team with other RAs.
“It’s super fun, and it’s just a great sport to be collaborative in,” Sorensen said. “It helps build your relationships more.”
Kissinger said part of her motivation for increasing participation in intramural sports comes from her experience as a student at Temple, where she participated in intramural women’s indoor and outdoor soccer, co-rec and women’s football, co-rec and women’s softball, women’s dodgeball and co-rec floor hockey. She also worked in Temple’s Intramural Department.
“I just thought it was really fun, so the more people that know about it [at St. Joe’s], obviously the better it’ll be and more competitive,” Kissinger said.
Temple currently offers four fall intramural sports, including flag football, outdoor soccer, volleyball and three levels of basketball. Other area schools also currently offer a wider variety of fall intramural sports than St. Joe’s. At Villanova, students can choose from five intramural sports. At LaSalle, they can choose from three.
Kissinger said she aims to grow St. Joe’s program, adding participants and teams and recruiting more women by offering sports just for them. Depending on student interest and space, she would like to add soccer, floor hockey and dodgeball in the future.
“Instead of just having men’s and co-rec, I hope women get more involved too because it is a good opportunity for women to meet friends and just stay active as well,” Kissinger said. “Hopefully this time next year we’ll see growth in participants.”
