For my fellow fourth years, tonight marks the beginning of our final intramural season. With Sign-Up Night II commencing this evening at 7 p.m. in the AFC lobby, the second spring season offers the last opportunity for many of us to win that ever elusive championship team T-shirt.
While our respective teams may not have advanced as far as we had hoped these past few years, the intramural program as a whole has improved by leaps and bounds during our tenure at the University under the leadership of the intramural department, namely Director Dave Cheplak and Assistant Director Todd Bowman.
For anyone who has spent time playing intramurals, Cheplak, completing his sixth year at Virginia, represents a visible fixture in the program and has been responsible for implementing and overseeing a number of improvements made to U.Va. intramurals.
One easily observable change has been to Sign-Up Night itself. No longer held in the mass chaos of Mem Gym, sign up nights are now a smooth process.
"We've really streamlined the process a lot," Cheplak explained. "Every year we keep tweaking it to make it as efficient as possible because we understand that people don't want to stand in line for a long time."
Better known for running captains' and playoff meetings, Cheplak's contributions don't stop there. Responsible for training officials in all sports, reviewing and updating captain's manuals and rule books, and developing long-term plans for improving U.Va. intramurals, Cheplak also focuses on distributing public relations information about all aspects of the intramural program.
During Cheplak's tenure as director of intramurals, the number of intramural participants has doubled while the number of female participants has tripled. Whereas Cheplak has certainly represented the face of intramurals for us upperclassmen, he is no longer a one-man band. Bowman is completing his second year with the department and has also played an instrumental role in the program's continued improvement.
In charge of what Cheplak calls the "day-to-day" operations, Bowman's laundry list of responsibilities includes the scheduling for all leagues, training officials and supervisors, and updating the tremendously improved intramural department Web site on a daily basis.
Both hailing from the same University of Florida graduate program, Cheplak's and Bowman's similar foundations have led to a mutual compatibility and shared vision for the future of Virginia intramurals.
Some of the changes and improvements that lay on the horizon will be made feasible by the addition of the new courts being built as part of the AFC: Phase II project. Beginning next year, there will be more slots available for those interested in basketball, indoor soccer and floor hockey. They also hope that the new facilities will allow for more co-rec leagues.
In addition to more chances for participation, both are looking into restructuring the current intramural format of four shorter individual seasons into three longer seasons.
Although such a change is still being discussed and debated, the department does hope to institute other adjustments, such as online registration, in the near future.
One addition to the program that excites both Cheplak and Bowman is the development of more extramural involvement, namely increasing student participation in regional and national intramural tournaments and possibly hosting such tournaments on Grounds.
While many challenges still lie ahead, such as developing a consistent base of sports officials to referee the increasing number of intramural games, both have helped guide the program to a place of national prominence.
"I just wish people could see what our intramural program is like in comparison to other universities and know how good they have it here," Cheplak said. "Our facilities have been ranked as some of the best in the country, and with the amount of money and resources that this university and this department have put into the program, we pride ourselves in being one of the top in the nation."
While the facilities and funding certainly play a role, there's another reason why our intramural program is so respectable: two men named Cheplak and Bowman.
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