Broomball lets the guys, the girls, the good, the bad enjoy themselves
By Mark Shugar
When it comes to a fall intramural sport that everyone can enjoy, broomball all but sweeps away the competition (I promise no more puns, so keep reading.)
I'm not here to totally rip apart flag football -tackle football's whiney little sister where all of my friends have delusions that they're the next Lee Suggs -but broomball is a sport that doesn't require you to be good in order to have fun.
Take me, for example. I thought broomball would be a cinch since I've played hockey since age five. A few bruises and a sore groin later, I found myself quite mistaken after our first game last season.
Crazy enough, I found myself in goal (for my new-found lack of mobility on ice without skates) and watched with delight as our offense was controlled by our team's required three girls.
Heck, our leading (and only) scorer was a girl; the guys just played defense. That's right, how often do you see a girl quarterbacking a flag football team? Not too shabby when you think about it, especially when ladies' goals are worth two.
An extra bonus is that broomballers are stumbling around in Bird Arena, a pretty cool place to be. Unless you're taking a P.E. class or going to recreational skates, you'd have to try your hand at making the defending national championship club hockey team to get time on that surface.
So when winter intramural sign-ups come about, don't waste your time with anything other than getting your sweep on.
Flag football allows participants to emulate their longtime heroes
By Pat Bourland
My adversary, Mark, brings up several good points about why broomball is a perfectly fine intramural sport. I agree that Bird Arena is a wonderful venue, and I share the opinion that it's ideal for a sport not to be dominated by males.
However, broomball lacks a fundamental necessity: context. The small-time game offers no stars to emulate, no style to model play after. It's sport run amok.
For a standard four weeks of the year, those on the football field can run like Gale Sayers, can toss like Joe Namath and can catch like Jerry Rice. They can play with the offensive and defensive prowess that their idols possess, as they constantly work toward a more complete mastery of the gridiron.
Look over at one field and you see Joe Montana connecting with Dwight Clark. On another field, there's Barry Sanders twisting his way to another six points, or Mike Ditka making a touchdown-preventing flag steal. Spectators can view flag football teams in relentless competition, moving their athletic legions with Romanesque fluidity.
For 45 minutes, anybody can be a superstar. It's a backyard dream come true. Of course, this may not be the way the game is always played, but it's at least the way participants can feel while they play.
Until broomball can match football's popular appeal, it will always struggle to overcome a roadblock to intramural superiority.
You may have just been left in my dust, Mark, but at least you have a broom to sweep it up with.
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Mark Shugar and Pat Bourland
