by npatano on March 31, 2022
The Scowl
Big Baller ‘24
Intramural Professional
Yes, They Stink
The question is: Should intramural referees be fired? The answer is yes. Intramural refs technically aren’t even qualified to be referees by the state of Rhode Island. According to state law, “All Rhode Island referees and umpires must register yearly. Rhode Island sports officials are required to complete a background check by the Bureau of Criminal Identification.”
To become an Intramural referee at Providence College, the tasks are simple. You have to run around campus with a backpack full of bricks, flunk out of Civ, and give Ed Cooley a high five. The only thing about these tasks that are somewhat justifiable for becoming a referee is the fact that running around with a backpack full of bricks is a test of endurance and stamina.
In each intramural sport thus far, the referees have magically messed up every single call they have made. Here are some of the things that have occurred due to the referees so far in this intramural season:
In basketball, there was a pair of referees who participated in the game as if they were players. On top of this, they were also trying to ref the game in favor of whichever team they were ‘playing’ for. This caused a riot among the fans, which then led to complete and total chaos.
In badminton, the players were not given a traditional birdie to hit. They were given a stuffed bird because the referees thought it was a legitimate birdie meant to be hit with the badminton rackets. So these badminton games were played with a stuffed animal bird going back and forth over the net.
In ice hockey, the referees made all the players play in figure skates instead of ice hockey skates. The players were not given much of an option about this either. They left with the feeling that they were figure skaters rather than ice hockey players, all thanks to the incapable intramural referees.
And lastly, the referees turned cornhole games into a tailgate. They brought grills, coolers full of beer, footballs to throw around, and even their cars to open the trunks. While cornhole was still being played, the referees enjoyed and focused on the ‘tailgate’ more than the actual cornhole games.
The instances above explain pretty clearly why PC intramural referees should be fired. They tend to care more about themselves and their fun rather than the job they were hired for.
LeBron James ‘23
One Shirt Away From Immortality
Yes, They Suck
The answer is clearly yes and there is no question: volunteer intramural referees should be able to be fired. To their credit, they are volunteering their time and effort to police a bunch of college kids who still think they are playing in a high school state championship game.
However, most of the time the referee is friends with one or more of the kids on one of the teams which automatically makes them biased.
Statistically, intramural refs know one player on any given team 89 percent of the time. This means that 89 percent of the time that an intramural game takes place, it is already an advantage for a team.
This has to change. On top of that, the team that has one or more players who are friends with the ref wins the game 60 percent of the time. That is completely unfair, outright awful, and must be combated in some way.
The solution? Make people who have no friends ref intramural games. That is the only way for an intramural sports game to be unbiased and fair to both teams. People with no friends are statistically 99 percent more likely to fairly ref an intramural sports game compared to a person who has friends, and that 1 percent missing is due to some people liking one color better than another.
Since this solution is not possible, because everyone has friends, another way to combat the bias of the current intramural referees is to have a questionnaire of who knows who for each team and then schedule the referees around that data. If another team reports that a member of the opposing team actually knows the ref and the ref lied on his or her questionnaire, then the ref will be terminated upon investigation.
In general, intramural refs are terrible at policing each game and make calls that they do not always agree.
When a freshman decides they want to become an intramural ref and are assigned to referee a game with seniors who are trying their hardest to win that t-shirt to prove to themselves they still have it one last time, they are treated like a second-class citizen by one team if they make a bad call.
That ref will not want to make any call that would get them yelled at again. But they will definitely make a terrible call again. That freshman should not continue to ref and should be fired. This kind of event occurs all the time, and anyone who has played an intramural sport will agree that intramural referees should be fired.