By Jacob Solis

Public Comment

Representatives from the University of Nevada, Reno’s Lombardi Recreation Center visited the Associated Students of the University of Nevada Senate to brief the body on the state of intramural sports.

Jim Fitzsimmons and Sheena Harvey, director and member services coordinator for Lombardi Recreation, respectively, fielded a variety questions from both senators and a large contingent of Greek students present in the audience. The latter group expressed a variety of concerns specific to the Greek community.

Many in the audience expressed frustration at the current lack of a Greek-only league, noting the difficulty involved in getting Greek teams into the same league so that those teams might be able to play each other. Traditionally, the Greek teams have organized tourneys of their own to compete in based in the intramural system, but have had difficulty executing these tourneys under the current system.

Fitzsimmons responded by noting that a Greek league would often be short in terms of fielding full teams, meaning other teams, such as those belonging to the residence halls, would have to be unfairly waitlisted.

“Every night, [intramural sports] should be open to the whole campus,” Fitzsimmons said.

Many in the audience also expressed concern over the quality of referees within the intramural leagues, noting various experiences with refereeing gone awry. The solution proposed most often was that Lombardi Rec should consider the hiring of professional referees from Reno’s high school system.

In response, both Fitzsimmons and Harvey were skeptical of these criticisms and further noted the lack of funds needed to adequately pay these referees

For roughly 40 years, the intramural program was co-sponsored by ASUN and by what is now Campus Recreation and Wellness. During that time, intramural sports were provided at no cost to students.

However, in 2008 ASUN ceased funding intramural sports, shifting the financial burden wholly on Campus Recreation and Wellness. As a result, teams must pay a base fee in order to participate. Fitzsimmons noted that currently, these fees have to cover all expenses, and if new referees were to be hired, the fees would increase substantially.

Legislation

The senate passed a series of bills that established Blue Crew as its own executive department within ASUN and created an updated handbook for the ASUN Department of Programming.

Previously, Blue Crew, which bills itself as “the official spirit club of the University of Nevada Wolf Pack Athletics,” had operated as a part of the programming board and thus answered to the director of programming. Now, however, Blue Crew will maintain its own director, programmers and interns as a separate and self-governing facet of ASUN.

Discussion of the bills was mainly procedural, correcting semantic errors and inconsistencies within the text of each of the five bills under deliberation.

The bills will not take effect until May, after ASUN’s 83rd session has begun.

Jacob Solis can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu  and on Twitter @TheSagebrush.