Date of Award:

5-1953

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

Committee

E. A. Jacobsen

Committee

King Hendricks

Committee

Lois Downs

Abstract

The movement for intramural sports has developed and expanded greatly in the past two decades. Much of this growth has been attained by hard and patient work through many years. The pioneer work now accomplished, intramural directors must still assume the responsibility of keeping their programs abreast of the times.

Intramural sports appeared in schools long before interscholastic athletics. Students associated themselves together in clubs and competed against each other. This student intramural competition increased until in 1913 Michigan and Ohio State each inaugurated a department of intramural athletics under the direction of one man who was expected to handle the demands for competition in the various leading sports. In 1915 John Wilce wrote the first treatise on intramural sports. In 1926 the high schools throughout the country began organizing intramural departments.

In these early phases of intramural growth the athletic associations had the rather natural idea that intramural athletics would furnish a recruiting ground for future varsity material. This idea is common to all institutions fostering intramural athletics for the first time; but longer experience has brought about the broader ideal of athletic fun and benefits for the many.

Elmer D. Mitchell in his book, Intramural Sports, (16, p. 8) states:

Girls and women were quick to grasp the opportunity offered by intramural activities. Interscholastic and intercollegiate athletics for girls and women had been on the wane for some time, as being opposed to the policies of women leaders in athletics. The informal leisurely characteristics of intramural sports, which furnished a sane type of competition adapted to the particular needs of their sex, carried an appeal to women physical educators. The very nature of the intramural program readily adapted itself as an augmenting factor to the more informal physical education program for girls.

The Women's Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation came into existence in 1923 and at once became active and influential in exerting pressure to avoid the pitfalls of men's interschool athletics. The establishment in 1932 of the National Section of Women's Athletics in the American Physical Education Association also focused attention on proper promotion of Women's programs and has been a potent factor in the development of standards advocating a wide range of intramural activities.

Voltmer and Esslinger (22, p. 252) have this to say about the early origins of sports in America:

There is ample evidence that boys participated in various sports in early American schools despite the obstacles in the form of hostile teachings and Puritan philosophy of the sinfulness and foolishness of play. As educational institutions multiplied and the school population increased, informal play activities among students expanded. The haphazard nature of these activities gradually gave way to better organization. The students conducted their activities themselves. The faculty was indifferent.

In more recent times the scope and popularity of the intramural sports program has grown rapidly. Intramural sports are fast becoming a part of the regular school curriculum instead of being just a form of extra-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 Sports Sake."

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