Each team was charged $20 for a chance for glory on the water.
“We put together an intramural battleship event to help raise funds for a conference we’re attending in April with the National Intramural Recreation Sport Association. It’s a chance for those that work in the campus rec industry to go meet other people and help improve your program across,” said Kim Warner a marketing assistant with Campus Recreation Services and a senior in parks, recreation and tourism.
The conference was where Campus Rec came up with the idea.
The objective for teams was to sink the other teams and not get sunk.
Each canoe was outfitted with four students. Two had buckets to dump water in the other canoes and to bail water out in their own canoe. Another person had a big rubber-like mat to help block incoming water and the final person was in charge of maneuvering the canoe around the battlefield-like pool.’
The turnout for the event surprised both Warner and participants.
“We had a really good turnout. I was really surprised, we have 10 teams,” Warner said.
“I didn’t expect this many people at all. We expected about three or four other boats other than ours and there’s like 10 here,” said Cameron Boyle, a freshman in business.
With the turnout, organizers are set on making this a yearly event but are also contemplating turning it into an event that occurs every semester, or possibly adding it onto the intramural schedule.
Although Campus Rec is contemplating turning Battleship into a regular event, students that attended the event think that having it once a year would be the best option.
“If they do it again next year, I’ll be back for sure. It might be difficult to make it an actual intramural sport. I can see it happening. But I think having it once a year would bring out the most amount of people,” Boyle said.
Overall, students that participated had a good time. They were in the pool with 10 different teams, attempting to send one another to the depths of the pool, although sometimes teams caused their own demise.
“I’m having a great time. We kind of blew it right at the beginning. We got sunk right at the beginning. We had some teammates not completely devoted and they tried to stand up and they fell over and we went with them,” Boyle said.
Not only did teams battle each other on the proverbial high seas, but they also had an inner-tube lounge for teams to hang out in once they were sunk. The event also featured a cannonball contest and teams feasted together afterword with food provided by Campus Rec.