Date of Award:

5-1954

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Kinesiology and Health Science

Department name when degree awarded

Physical Education

Committee Chair(s)

H. B. Hunsaker

Committee

H. B. Hunsaker

Abstract

Intramural activity programs, as employed in the modern American high school, represent a very recent and fast growing development. In early colonial days youth was necessarily absorbed in helping to build a new nation out of the wilderness. Clearing forests, building homes, and handling heavy chores were some of the tasks of which youths were an important part. They had little leisure time for play. In the modern age of today, with its frontiers established, students who are attending high school have ample leisure time for play. The direction of this play into wholesome avenues is the problem that faces physical educators today.

The earliest physical education program in American schools was a transplanted European pattern of strictly formal gymnastics. It was not until the 1860's that American schools began to borrow outright the English idea of sports. It was still another generation at least until the truly American pattern of competitive sports began to show the characteristics that are different from the English conception of games. There can be no doubt that these evolutions reflected the character of the struggling new democratic nation.

Voltmer and Esslinger have this to say about the early origin of sports in America:

There is ample evidence that boys participated in our early American schools despite obstacles in the form of hostile teachers and the Puritan philosophy of the sinfulness of play. As educational institutions began to multiply and the school population increased informal play activities among students expanded. The haphazard nature of these activities gradually gave way to better organization. The faculty was indifferent. (21, p. 252)

In those early days of sports, the students banded together into sports clubs. Considering the later rapid expansion of interschool athletics, often to the exclusion of intramurals, it is very significant to remember that early American athletics were really all intramural in nature.

Student intramural competition increased until in 1913 Michigan and Ohio State Universities each inaugurated a department of intramural athletics under the direction of one man. In 1915 John Wilce wrote the first treatise on intramural sports. In 1926 the high schools throughout the United States began organizing intramural departments.

In 1941 over 400 physical educators met in Chicago to discuss high school intramural activities. (16) From this meeting it was brought out that there was great interest being developed in intramural sports. Some of the educators represented were hiring trained intramural sports directors, and educational administrators future plans were including space and equipment for the intramural program.

With the rapid growth of the intramural program, there has been an increasing effort to set standards for its improvement. That it has become an important part of education can no longer be doubted. Some educators are even going so far as to suggest that interscholastic athletics be greatly curbed or eliminated, and that intramurals be substituted to enable all students equal attention. (13, p. 18)

Williams and Brownell state:

Intramural athletics provide an opportunity for the great mass of students to engage in vigorous activity. The student is a member of a team enjoying the thrills of success which crown achievement, learning to take defeat intelligently and graciously, developing worthwhile habits of leisure, and forming a permanent interest in sports. (22, p. 435)

Since 1941 the scope and popularity of the intramural program has become a part of the regular school curriculum instead of just being a form of co-curricular activity. The rapid strides of this movement furnish convincing proof that underlying our present demand for the spectacular and skillful performance in sports there is a genuine interest in "Sports for All," and "Sports for Sport's Sake."

The objectives of intramural activities are primarily to: (1) promote leisure education, (2) enrich social development, (3) develop group loyalties, (4) provide healthful exercise and recreation, (5) provide opportunity for competitive participation in the physical education activities not ordinarily afforded the mass of students, (6) provide and cultivate skills in activities which have a carry-over value to after school life.

Many authorities agree that intramural activities are an integral part of a good physical education program. It is of great value to administrators to know how their program of intramurals compares with those recommended by authorities in physical education.

Nash states:

The intramural program offers the best incentive for physical education activities in which the entire studentbody can participate as classified groups. The intramural method can be expanded almost to a point of universality. It is applicable to school situations from fifth grade through the high school, junior colleges, and universities. It offers neuro-muscular skills, and it is an excellent laboratory for emotional development. (15, p. 192)

Means says:

The program merits a place as one of the educational essentials. It is a testing ground of reality. It is life itself. In a modern world all too full of maladjustments, inhibitions, complexes, worries, and fears, youth will profit tremendously from a training and experience that uses pleasurable activity to teach one how to relax, how to get along with other people, and wholesome skills. (13, p. 15)

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