Intramural sports have just as much passion, aggression and entertainment as any other sport league.

With hundreds of Eastern Washington University students signing up and forming teams throughout the regular school year, the intramural league has to be just as structured and disciplined as most leagues are.

Senior Lindsey Corn, who has been refereeing soccer for Eastern Washington University’s intramural sports for the last four years. She loves the job but said it is quite demanding.

“You have to pay attention all the time and the players will let you know if you missed it,” Corn said.

In any sport, the referee usually has the toughest jobs to make accurate and fair calls, remain true to the game and ensure the safety of the players during the game. For Corn, there is no difference.

“I have had a couple of fights I had to break up,” Corn said. “I have been called racist, blind, bias, you know all those things.”

Junior Brittanti Terry, a transfer student who enrolled at EWU this fall quarter, was immediately employed with the intramural sports department. Currently working within the intramural administrative office, she said she learned that intramural sports are not taken lightly, because the players take it serious.

Terry said that is where most of the complaints filed for intramural sports come from: players arguing with the referees about a call or their performance, but she said it only happens about two or three times a quarter because the referees are trained very well.

Sophomore Maurice Mutong participates in intramural sports to play basketball and soccer. He said, that it is a lot of fun and a great way to meet people.

Mutonga said he is a victim of losing his cool and becoming upset with a referee.

“I actually got upset in a game last week,” Mutonga said. “I felt like the referee wasn’t fair and kept making biased calls.”

Even so, Mutonga said he enjoys intramural sports a lot, and so does his friends. He said each quarter, they cannot wait for intramural sports to start and they always show up.

“I meet a lot of different people out here,” Mutonga said. “It’s a great way to meet people who share a common interest as you.”

According to Terry, basketball, indoor and outdoor soccer are the most popular intramural sports and always have the best turnouts. She said there have been times where some leagues had hundreds of students sign up ready to play. Sometimes, they are too excited.

“People take intramural sports very, very seriously,” Terry said. “People don’t like to lose. Sometimes people almost get into fights, usually doesn’t happen. There are a lot of injuries in intramural sports because people go so hard.”

Mutonga said he usually takes the game seriously when it courts, like during championships. He has never witness a game where player’s emotions truly got the best of them.

“I’ve never seen fights,” Mutonga said. “But people beef like once in a while but it never goes that far.”

According to Corn, there is a range of levels of seriousness. Some people who take it very seriously and get very into it and then there are some people who are just out here for fun.

“There was this one time where the game was very intense. It was a championship game and both teams were very serious about it,” Corn said. “One player had a history with playing dirty a little bit and so he ended up tripping another player and so the other player go very mad, got up and did that thing that guys do when they’re chest to chest. So I had to run over and push them apart and get angry and red face and throw them out the game.”

Yet there are still positives to the job, according to Terry. Since she has began working with the intramural league, she too has built friendships and sees the same friendly faces returning quarter after quarter to compete.

“I think intramural sports are fun, positive and effective,” Terry said. “From what I have seen this past school year, it’s a great way for people to meet people they probably wouldn’t have thought to talk to had it not been for a common passion. Shoot, I’ve met people and usually, I am behind the scenes in the office.”