The very-active NIRSA Community forum - if you don't know, that's the place where college recreation professionals post job offerings and seek advice on facilities, management and equipment issues - tackles some thorny questions. So when a post appeared Monday headed "Need opinions on a tough situation," I donned my thinking cap and girded myself for something…well, tough.
The situation is this: Drake University's intramural rec basketball league is being messed up by one team that appears to be in the league just for the purpose of messing it up. To quote: "They bring a stuffed beaver, which they try to have play, they will routinely take off their jerseys and switch them to their opponents' color and score on themselves, run football plays, etc." Other teams have complained, staff members have complained - no one wants to play against or deal with them.
What should they do about it? Not surprisingly, the program coordinators who have chimed in all agree that the team should be removed from the league. Surprisingly - amazingly - most of the respondents have really wrestled with this issue, as if the knee-jerk response:
Kick their asses out of the league!
…somehow has to be justified beyond:
Kick their asses out of the league!
Reading the suggested steps - sitting down with the offenders, explaining the institution's policies, writing some new policies - I was at first shaking my head in disbelief. Kick their asses out of the league! But, in fact, the situation is tough: The stuffed beaver's teammates signed up, they show up, and they're having fun. What if a battleship team showed up in the university pool and sank their own canoe, because for whatever idiotic reason they thought that was more fun than trying to sink their opponents' canoes? What if an IM softball team kept their bats on their shoulders, leading to an amazing 21-strikeout perfect game?
Who is prepared to deal with an anti-team? Whose policies anticipate Occupy Intramural Basketball?
I have to hand it to the questioner and the respondents: They didn't succumb to the knee-jerk response - do I have to repeat it? - and instead thoughtfully pointed in the right direction. Your policies should specify that recreational programs must protect the experience of all participants, and that principles of fair play and sportsmanship rule. It would also help to make sure your policies specify that teams play at the discretion of program staff.
If that doesn't work, implement drug testing for all participants. Tell me that wouldn't have been effective here.
