Emotions run high in IM sports as players get fired up

An outraged athlete, red-faced and defiant, storms over to the official and unleashes a string of insults.

The referee remains unmoved and the player’s frustration mounts.

The scene plays like a broken record, and on UCLA’s Intramural Field, the song is no different.

“If you haven’t gotten mad at a ref yet while playing IM sports, you probably just haven’t played enough,” fourth-year economics student Marshall Guttenberg said. “Mistakes happen, and sometimes you get caught up in the moment.”

They may not be playing for national championships or Olympic gold medals, but many of the UCLA students who play IM sports are not joking around. The most serious competition takes place in A-league and top-level fraternity games, where the players are usually experienced in the sport. The intensity is often tinged with nostalgia, motivated by memories of a time when the stakes were higher than an IM sports champions T-shirt.

“People are coming out of high school and they have been playing their whole lives, so it is kind of an outlet to get out their competitive side when they don’t have a structured team anymore,” said IM sports supervisor and fourth-year mechanical engineering student Ian Weinberg, who has been officiating IM sports for three years. “I’ve seen people who have gotten really fired up.”

As the ones making, and sometimes missing, the calls, referees most often bear the brunt of players’ aggression. Because IM officials are also students, the age barrier that usually divides older referees and young athletes doesn’t exist, and respect can be difficult to earn among equals.

“When you miss the little calls, people get frustrated and it ends up becoming a bigger deal,” Weinberg said. “The main thing is preventative refereeing, calling things early, and if you know someone is getting an attitude, then talk to them from the beginning. Make sure to stay on top of the situation.”

But in the heat of the moment, tempers still flare.

“I remember playing indoor soccer a couple years ago, and we were playing this team that was trying to run down the clock because they got a cheap goal,” said fourth-year electrical engineering student Jeff Norsen, recalling a time when he lost his cool because a team was being unsportsmanlike. “You know, emotions can run high.”

Not all IM sports elicit the same amount of intensity from players. Weinberg believes softball is the most laid-back whereas basketball generates the most heated competition.

“It is fast-paced and a difficult game to catch everything,” said Weinberg, who estimates that he plays on 16 to 18 IM teams every year. “The official plays are hard to predict, and people take it very seriously, especially at UCLA.”

Guttenberg disagrees, citing flag football as the most intense IM sport.

“Football is meant to be a contact sport so changing that into a game where you pull a little flag off someone’s hip can create a lot of tension,” he said. “It’s a tough atmosphere to make a contact sport into a non-contact one. People expect a lot out of football.”

However, the intensity of IM sports is not all bad. Screaming at a referee is one extreme, but on the opposite end of the spectrum lies indifference, which can be equally as damaging.

Because many students have made emotional investments into IM sports, the program has become an important part of campus life.

“I think that it is awesome that people get intense,” Weinberg said. “I’m very intense when I play too. As long as they are under control and aren’t doing it in a disrespectful way, it’s great for the different sports that people take it seriously, and that makes it more fun for everyone.”

So what is the best way to play IM sports at the appropriate level of intensity?

For Guttenberg, the answer is simple: Just play more.

“You get used to it after awhile and stop caring so much.”