February 3, 2006

IMs Take Over Barton, Lynah

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This weekend, Lynah Rink and Barton Hall will host competitions featuring remarkable athletes – hockey players with NHL aspirations and runners with near-Olympic credentials.

On Wednesday night, however, both venues were disgraced as far as athletic prowess is concerned – because two nights ago, both places opened their doors to intramural sports.

Let me begin with my personal venture on the basketball courts in Barton. It was the first game of my fraternity’s basketball season. Being 5-8 with two-inch sneakers on, I wasn’t exactly the key to my team’s success. To be honest, I was just planning to give moral support. But there I was, stealing a pair of shorts from Teagle Hall (sorry girl who I swindled into giving them to me), and then standing on the sideline hoping my team would go up by enough points so that I could actually play.

We did.

With about seven minutes left in our game, we went up by 18 or so, and it was my time. Quick background: I played basketball for two years in middle school and played power forward because I was the same exact size then as I am now. Even so, everyone I guarded was at least a head taller than me, so what I gave up in size, I made up with in feistiness, or as some like to call it, fouling out.

So I came out like a madman, diving for loose balls, sitting on a kid’s head, and occasionally running the floor to play defense.

But the shining moments of my time on the court were an easy lay-up off the glass and then draining a 3-pointer from the corner. It was like those Master Card commercials – pair of Cornell athletic shorts: free because I took them and never gave them back; beers after the game: free because they were left at our house after a party; scoring five points in seven minutes only to miss two free throws after a technical foul – priceless.

Okay, so I didn’t actually pay for anything, but you get the point.

Speaking of things that are priceless. Fraternity basketball was nothing compared to sorority ice hockey. Yes, that’s right. The lovely ladies of Delta Gamma and Kappa Kappa Gamma traded in their pink shorts and hair ribbons, for