“You play like a girl!”
These are five words that no elementary-school boy wants to hear. However, with the advent of Title IX, which mandates gender-equal opportunities for collegiate athletes, and the rising popularity of female sports stars, the era of women standing on the sidelines passed a long time ago.
Evidenced by the 8,000 intramural players a year, many of which include female and coed teams, interest in recreational sports is very high at UCLA. Ranging from flag football to water polo to indoor soccer, the breadth of sporting options available to students is tremendous.
These sports are broken down into three types: men’s, women’s and co-recreational, in which both men and women compete together.
Co-rec leagues have a unique challenge in equalizing the playing field to accommodate both genders.
For some sports, such as volleyball and outdoor soccer, men and women participate side by side vying for the win for their respective teams without any rule variations between them.
However, flag football has special rule modifications that are consistent with the National Intramural Recreational Sports Association.
The rule modifications for flag football specify that women must touch the ball on every other play, men cannot run past the line of scrimmage, and touchdowns by women receive nine points instead of the traditional six granted to men. NIRSA creates these rules, and UCLA Recreation abides by them.
A reason for these rule modifications might be the physical nature of the sports.
“Flag football being a semi-contact sport and basketball being a semi-contact sport, you do see the greater discrepancies between men and women. So there are greater modifications to account for the disparities there,” said Jason Zeck, assistant director of competitive sports for UCLA Recreation.
With around 30 co-rec teams per league, it seems that the rule modifications are not a deterrent.
In fact, co-rec leagues are the second most popular league, right behind independent leagues at UCLA. Opinions vary on the impact of rule modifications and their effect on competitive balance.
“It’s less physical, but you can’t do much about that,” second-year prebusiness economics student Charles Liu said.
“Girls can really surprise you about how good they are at football. … It’s still a lot of fun.
“I think it’s pretty balanced now with the rules. It ensures girls are playing. I haven’t found that guys are playing too much.”
Female students had more eclectic opinions on the subject.
“I think it’s good,” third-year prepsychobiology student Michelle Dang said.
“It’s more equal; if it wasn’t for those rules, the guys would just pass it to guys.”
However, not everyone shares this opinion.
“Sometimes a guy catches a ball, but it should be a girl, but the guy caught it,” said third-year biochemistry student Lynette Chea. “It’s kind of lame sometimes.”
Overall, the rules seem to work because the competition is fierce, and participation is robust in these games.
However, if there is ever an issue with the rule modifications or interest in different co-rec sports, the opportunity exists for improvement.
“Any time a student wants to drop in and share with us their ideas, e-mail us, let us know what sports they would like to see offered,” Zeck said. “(Then) we would definitely consider offering those sports.”
The game may never be completely equal and fair, but the ultimate goal of sports, to have fun, is still fulfilled whether the league is male, female or co-rec.