October 26, 2007

Intramural flag football teams battle for SIUC champ

by Eric Welch

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Rather than the nationally ranked Salukis, regular students will take the field at McAndrew Stadium on Tuesday, Oct. 30 to kick off Southern Illinois University Carbondale's intramural flag football championships.

For the first time in the program's history, intramural teams will play the title games in McAndrew Stadium under the lights, with an environment similar to that of Saluki games.

"Steve Falat, the Saluki's announcer, will be doing the announcing, and Mike Trude will do the play-by-play," said Gary Tisdale, coordinator of marketing and publicity for SIUC's recreational sports and services.

Students and the community can attend for free. SPC-TV, a campus television channel available at SIUC residence halls and buildings, will air the games the following week.

With 92 teams and more than 1,100 participants, football is one of the most popular intramural sports at SIUC. The league consists of three divisions: Greek, independent and co-rec. Much like the NFL, the winners of the Greek and independent divisions face off for the overall men's title. The co-rec division, made up of men and women, plays separately from the Greek and independent teams and will have its own championship game.

Charles Furguson, coordinator of intramural sports, said many of the participants played football in high school and take the tournament extremely seriously.

"The games are at McAndrew because intramurals at SIUC are competitive to say the least," he said.

The evening will be a flurry of high-intensity match-ups. The independent division title game will begin 6:30 p.m. with the Greek title game following at 7:30 p.m. The winners of the two divisions will face off at 8:30 p.m. to decide the overall winner, while the co-rec championship game will follow at 9:30.