Intramural Sports

This semester, I was the captain of my intramural soccer team here at Cortland. When taking up the role I had no idea how much work went into it or the leadership it included. As captain the preparation (even for intramurals) went far beyond what I expected. My first task was discussing the availability of games for the season, and when everyone was free. At the beginning of the season I also had to help prepare my team by scheduling a meeting to coordinate uniforms, numbers, and names. After this I went to order the uniforms, pay for them after collecting everyone's money, and finally pick-up and distribute them. Making sure everyone was prepared was important because if we were ill-prepared we were not allowed to play. Before the first game, I realized I had to find a way to communicate with all the players to let them know we had a game. In previous years, previous captains had utilized a facebook group to notify of upcoming games. As an infrequent facebooker, I found it hard to keep up with checking and usually found out hours before the game from others on the team. As a result I decided that since everyone had a phone I would text message to make sure everyone could be there and decide whether or not we needed to cancel. The text message method worked out great and I knew every game how many people and who exactly would be attending the game.

Throughout the season we played 10 fifty games and competed in the championship final game. The games themselves were an absolute blast and every game I found myself providing teammates with feedback and providing motivation whenever it was needed. Making sure everyone played and participated was also important to the game, and as much as we all wanted to play the entire game, there came a time to sub out. After every game, we brought the younger girls home who did not have their car with them. Although we wound up losing the final game the season was great and it taught me a lot about preparation and motivation.