A groundbreaking ceremony is set for Thursday, Oct. 12 at 9 a.m. at the site of the future field, located at 1101 5th Ave. S.
Photo by Ian Keel / Photo Editor.
Brittany Guimond
Campus Reporter
Intramural sports combines both social and athletic aspects of campus to form a friendly, competitive atmosphere.
Members have the opportunity to enjoy a sport without commitment that college sports. UAB currently accommodates over 400 club athletes and more than 2,000 intermural participants. In response to this enthusiastic student participation, UAB will soon expand intramurals by creating the campus’ first dedicated intramural sports field to open Fall 2018.
“By creating a bigger, more professional space for these teams, we hope to open the intramural sports division for even more students who wish to participate,” said Stacey Pettigrew, assistant director of competitive sports and camps.
Despite access to the current fields, the intramural teams don’t have first priority over the space and, at times, are removed from any timeslots they reserve by other teams.
“For us, this field is definitely a complete replacement of the current one to give a higher priority to those participating in intramural sports as well as expanding the amount of participants which can join,” Pettigrew said. “An additional benefit to longer reserved field hours is the ability to expand upon, or even eliminate, the team caps which limit how many players are able to join the intramural sports clubs.”
In addition to the extra space and additional practice hours, the new field steps up in quality for both viewers and players. Improvements include storage units, bleachers, electronic scoreboards and facilities including gender neutral restrooms. The field itself will be safer with more level playing grounds as well as higher quality turf and drainage systems.
“It’s exciting to have a new place for the teams,” said Emily Gomez, a supervisor at the Campus Recreation Center. “The current field gets too wet to play on at times and we have to be quieter with whistles and yelling since we play alongside other teams. This is an opportunity to play without boundaries.”
Her fellow supervisor Kelton Tully added that this is “a great opportunity for team payers to expand in their sports now that they will have their own space for their activities.”
Despite the open date of August 2018, the anticipation of the field already permeates. To formally announce this new addition, a groundbreaking ceremony is set for Thursday, Oct. 12 at 9 a.m. at the site of the future field, located at 1101 5th Ave. S.
Those who attend will have the opportunity to hear the President Ray Watts speak about the new field and what it has to offer in enriching campus life at UAB.
Brittany Guimond can be reached at [email protected].
