Intramural sports have become a major bright spot for campus life here at Marywood. Students go all out by creating their own teams, recruiting others on campus to form a complete roster and designing custom team uniforms.

History of Marywood Intramural

For many alumni, intramural sports were not a part of their campus experience. That changed when Ian Kovatch was elected as the athletics rep for the Student Government Association (SGA) during the second semester of his freshman year.

“Historically, the SGA rep for athletics would just fix up the gym or get new equipment every now and then but I wanted to do something different,” Kovatch shared. “There were zero intramural sports [at Marywood].”

Determined to offer both men and women students a chance to play co-ed sports casually with friends beyond varsity-level competition, Kovatch launched intramural basketball in his sophomore year — a program that quickly grew. He later introduced intramural volleyball, which was discontinued this year, but Freddy Kloss, SGA’s chief funding officer, and head of Marywood intramurals, has plans to bring it back. Kovatch started up other events as well that consisted of flag football, dodgeball and pickleball. Kloss was able to add his own twist to the intramural scene this fall with the addition of a flag football league, rather than a tournament.

Behind the Scenes

While many students on campus appreciate the commitment that both Ian Kovatch and Freddy Kloss have put into intramural sports, much of their work happens outside of the spotlight. Countless hours are spent weekly with creating schedules, graphics for their Instagram page, renting out the spaces for the games, designing merchandise and setting up before each game. This is just a condensed list of their efforts.

Kovatch wanted it to be very clear that SGA was a huge contributor to his success as the commissioner. “Shoutout SGA (…) student government has been nothing but a great help,” Kovatch noted, highlighting that collaboration is a key piece to the intramural leagues.

How are the leagues structured?

Both the basketball and football intramural leagues at Marywood are modeled after major professional sports organizations, with each league divided into two conferences — similar to AFC/NFC in the NFL and the Western/Eastern Conferences in the NBA.

Basketball follows a 20-team format, with 10 teams in each of the two conferences. Six teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs, with the top two seeds in each receiving a first-round bye. Teams then compete within their conference to decide on which team will advance to the championship. Each champion from both conferences will then face off to crown the intramural basketball champion.

Flag football, similar to the basketball league, was divided into two conferences as well. However, football features only 10 teams in total. To make the playoffs, each team needed to finish top-two in its conference to face off in a semi-final matchup. Then, the winner of each semi-final game would face off in the championship.

Social Media

Social media has become another piece to the puzzle for intramural sports at Marywood, but it was not always a staple here at Marywood. Kovatch worked all through email in his sophomore year as the commissioner for basketball. He had the captains’ emails from every team (16 teams), and this is where he would update the league with the current standings and game schedule.

“Year one of intramural basketball was a bust media wise, we really didn’t have much. That was one of my biggest regrets. We should’ve started an Instagram then,” Kovatch said.

The growth of social media for intramural basketball was something Kovatch probably would’ve never expected. At a point in his junior year, roughly 80% of the league had their own team page and by his senior year, the Marywood Intramural Instagram got up to 250,000 profile views.

Passing the Torch

Kovatch wanted to ensure that intramural sports were in good hands after his departure. This led to Ian sending out a sign up link for anyone that was interested in taking over his position. Kloss, who had always been on Kovatch’s radar, stepped up and applied.

“I always had him [Freddy] in mind,” said Kovatch. “I wanted someone who could get creative with it.”

Kloss is determined to keep the level of production for intramural sports as Kovatch was able to accomplish in his tenure. Kloss gave Kovatch very high praise for everything he was able to accomplish as the head of intramural sports, and was very thankful for help that Kovatch gave him last year while Kloss took a co-leader role for intramural last spring.

“Oh everything (…) from managing, being involved with everywhere on campus, he was also a guy that did that. Being a student athlete with your main season still being during intramural basketball,” Kloss said. “Just following Ian for a season is what I took from it. It was a successful league before I got there for a reason.”

Kovatch, now a graduate student still attending Marywood, is excited for what Kloss has in store for the upcoming basketball season. He has full faith that this year will be the biggest year yet for Marywood intramurals. Kovatch wants everyone to know he remains a student and will continue participating in intramural sports — but this time, strictly as a player.

If you are a Marywood student interested in participating in intramural sports — or simply want to keep up with campus intramural events — be sure to check out @marywood.intramural.basketball on Instagram.

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