Intramural sports have been one of my favorite parts of my first two years at Gonzaga. It has allowed me to stay active in a fun way, and I have met most of my friends through teamwork and even competition. However, there always seems to be one opponent during the five game seasons — regardless of what sport we're participating in — that strikes a nerve for every undergraduate intramural squad, and that team is almost always comprised of students from the law school.
It doesn't bother me that they bring their wives and children to the game. Why not have your spouse wear your away jersey and letterman's jacket? It helps them relive a time when they didn't think the weight of the world was on their shoulders — I can't dislike you for that, I would even find it amusing and enjoyable if that was the only quirk about law school teams. Sadly, it is not. Two things bother me about playing the law school: Their insistence on treating the game like it's a trial, and their misplaced desire to go overboard and play the game the "right way" to "set an example" for the misguided undergrads. I suppose the first point makes sense. Their lives are consumed with learning about courtroom procedure, so it would naturally carry over to the field. This still does not make it acceptable or fun for anyone who still lives in the civil world. Every team bickers, makes snide remarks, and yells at refs, thinking they are in a trial setting. The referee is not a judge; he or she is an 18 to 21-year-old kid trying to fulfill their federal work study grant — Relax, Matlock. When you argue about a call, the referee will never say, "Objection granted, overruled. Please strike the previous play from the record." The referee will however call for order and even throw you out of his or her metaphoric courtroom. Being condescending to the umpire/referee, who is just trying to do his or her job, is not a strategy for success.
The second point is the one I take most issue with. I do not understand their rationale for playing with a chip on their shoulders. Every older generation of sports players think the younger generation is soft and disgracing the game. Law school teams treat undergraduate teams with that perception, which is ironic because they are not that much older than us.
Law school teams have been known to wear wristbands with their plays on them a la Peyton Manning during football season, and no law school intramural team is complete without the wily vet on the sideline making hand signals wearing a backwards hat.
Law school teams have been known to slow down the pace of basketball games and feed the post so deliberately that if Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning were to stop by Rudolf, they would think it looked like the 1990s playoffs complete with hard fouls and the triangle offense.
They go out of their way to slide hard into the second baseman to break up a double play in softball, completely forgetting that whether you are 20 or 30, no one wants to get hurt playing intramural sports. Law school teams pride themselves on their plate discipline in slow-pitch softball and would execute the perfect sacrifice bunt if they could.
They do this as a subtle way stick it to the "naïve" undergraduates, but I never leave a game thinking, "wow, that is the way the game is meant to be played. Boy, did I just get put in my place! I'm so ungrateful and ignorant. Those guys are the consummate professionals." They are not professionals. I don't need the law school guys to teach me a lesson. I play hard and I play to win, but I also understand the context this is in. There is a time and a place to be abrasive and bitter. That time is after you've graduated the Gonzaga School of Law.
I would prefer you use intramurals as an escape, to go out and forget about your stress for a while with some good-natured, fun competition. Intramurals are meant to make us feel like we're kids playing for the fun of the sport again, not for the frivolous arguing and "competitive" dirtiness that plagues more meaningful leagues — unfortunately, when it comes to the law school teams, that isn't the "precedent."
Kevin Read is a sophomore at Gonzaga.
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