~pring intramural sports offered to all students

by Mike Butler perspectives editor

If you spent the winter months being as inactive as a hibernating bear, then the Dixon Center has the perfect thing to wake your bo'1yfrom its slumber. The spring intramural season is packed with a variety of sports for everyone, from traditional sports like tennis to unique athletic ventures like Wallyball.

The sports were selected from the almost 150 intramural surveys returned to Chris Winkler, the Recreation and Facilities Director of Cabrini College.

Slide home with Softball

An interesting offering on the intramural schedule is softball. The addition of the new softball field has allowed for this sport to be offered and may even open the door in the future for baseball to be an intramural or club sport.

Beach Volleyball

Volleyball, last offered in the Fall, returns in the spring with a twist: beach volleyball. Valley Forge Military Academy is letting Cabrini use its sand courts for the spring intramural season. The games will be of the pick-up variety, meaning that it's all about fun and not about prizes.

Tennis Anyone?

Tennis might prove to be one of the more competitive intramural sports as players will be assigned an opponent once a week and will have one week to complete their match with that opponent. This should prevent any problems with using the tennis courts with the men's tennis team. Your only problem could be convincing the weather into letting you use the courts.

Ultimate Frisbee, ultimate fun

Behind the mansion seems an unlikely place for a sport, but it is the setting of Ultimate Frisbee season. Ultimate Frisbee has long been a favorite among college students across America and even worldwide. It has garnered enough support to have a governing body, the Ultimate Players Association. Not bad for a sport that started in a high school parking lot in 1968.

Cabrini Spring Intramural Schedule

What in the world is Wallyball?

But the strangest sport that is being offered this spring is Wallyball. Winkler described it as "a very cool variation of volleyball played on the squash courts." It's a fast-paced three-on-three game "where the ball either hits you or it falls on the ground." It has been a big success at larger colleges.

Squash and Swimming, part two Squash and swimming will still be offered, as they are year-round sports. Weightlifting will also be offered, but so far there bas been little-to-no interest in it so far.

"I think the two big ones will be ultimate frisbee and Wallyball," Winkler said in regards to what the most popular intramural sports will be. Flag football was the most popular intramural sport in the Fall while 5-on-5 basketball and indoor soccer were the winter's most popular intramural events. For more information on intramural sport contact Chris Winkler at the Dixon Center at 610-2253909 or e-mail him at cwinkler@cabrini.edu.

Leazu,e fins

Squash Tennis

Ultimate Frisbee

Beach Volleyball

Softball

Swimming Weights

Walleyball

Rezisterby Play beyear roundevent

April 4

OPEN

April 17

April 1

Year-Round

April 17

April 3

Tournaments

April?

April2

April19

April .18

Aprill?

April 10

Squash Registration: April 17-May 2, begins May 2

Triathalon: April 4-22, begins April 22

Ride through nature on two wheels of fun Walkers Wanted

by Matt Coughlin

assistant news editor

Lumps of empty space form in the stomach as you race along the trail and launch up over a root imbedded in your path. Sweat soaks you. Mud is splashed violently and indiscriminately on our leg and up your back. Chances are that you will take several spills today. But you are mountain biking, and that's just the way it goes.

Perhaps what I enjoy most about mountain biking is the feeling that I get when rushing downhillbeing in a battle for control as my "tnnt wheel bangs and bounces along over rocks the size of my head and unearthed roots longer than my bike frame.

''There is a feeling of victory when you overcome the elements, like reaching the top of a hill or tracking through the mud," Tim Cody, of Stowe, Pa., said.

Mountain bikers are a unique breed. Sometimes we move in groups, sometimes on our own. Sometimes we want to race through nature, sometimes we want to stop and look along the way.

Mountain bikers do not have an animosity for cyclists.

"No, I ride on the road about once a week, when I don't want to have too much excitement," Cody said, smirking.

Mountain biking is a relatively cheap sport. Trails are many in the state of Pennsylvania. In this area, there are trails that run through Valley Forge Park on down to the Art Museum, through Wissahickon Park, and any other wooded or hilly area you can find.

Unfortunately, there are those who want to ban mountain biking in places like the mighty woods of the Wissahickon. Opponents to mountain biking claim that the bikes ruin the natural development of the parks and that they expand already existing trails.

However, the trails are expanded naturally by those walking through as well as riding. Mountain bikers are enjoying nature as well, and not in a destructive way, but rather as a challenge, argue proponents.

It costs nothing to mountain bike after the initial purchases of bike and helmet. An aspiring rider need only obtain a helmet ($20) and a bike ($300 on up). Helmets were not a requirement until a number of fatal accidents on the trail in the last couple years brought on an ordinance requiring headgear.

Safety tips for biking:

-wear a helmet

•know the path you are traveling

•drink plenty of fluids to Walk

Against

Hunger and Nourish Your Sole Saturday, April 7, 2001 walk begins at 9:30 am at the Philadelphia Museum of Art contact Mary Laver at XB409 for details