In the first few months of my first year at Elon, I made a bucket list of 42 things I wanted to accomplish before the end of my senior year. I wanted to do all the typical Elon things like attending College Coffee, meeting Dr. Danieley, and surviving 24 hours at Elonthon, but I also had a lot of challenging goals. At the start of my senior year, I only had two things left to accomplish. The first being #41: to get accepted to graduate school, and the second, #16: to win an intramural championship with the Roman Cathletes.
Anyone who knows me personally knows that one of my favorite things to do is playing intramural sports. I still remember the first CCM intramural I participated in. After our first freshman small group meeting in the fall of 2012, our two small group leaders convinced the group to play in the first flag football game of the season. Since that game, I was hooked. I made the majority of my friends at Elon through CCM, and intramurals played a huge role in building those relationships. Though often the amount of losses we’ve had outnumbered our wins, I’ve never felt more like a winner than the nights we’ve spent celebrating the small victories (like one touchdown or goal in soccer). I think the losses made the wins even sweeter.
After three and a half years of participating in intramural sports, I finally got the opportunity to cross #16 off my list. At 11:30 p.m. on a Thursday night this past Winter Term, the Roman Cathletes found out that they had made the playoffs for intramural bowling. Not only had we made the playoffs, we were ranked #1. That night was one of the most exhilarating nights of my Elon career. We were all on edge every time a pin fell - celebrating a strike or encouraging each other with a split. Finally, close to 1:00 a.m., we finished our very last game and were announced the winners of the Intramural Bowling season. We finally got our Intramural Champ t-shirts.
Fellow senior Kristin Leesman and I have played almost every intramural Elon has had to offer with the Roman Cathletes, and we have made it a personal goal to get the most out of every season. We were thrilled when we were selected to be the captains of the Roman Cathletes for this spring, and this semester, we’ve had more fun than we could have imagined. The team always has a positive attitude from start to finish. Whether we’re down by a lot or winning by a landslide, we’ve given it our all in bowling, basketball, wiffleball, and currently, dodge ball. CCM intramurals transformed my college career. Our teams have become a family, and we’re always excited when new people join our team and stick around sport after sport. The Roman Cathletes have grown so much over the years, and I know both Kristin and I are extremely excited to see them continue to progress.
