It is that special time of year again.

No, I am not talking about the start of the NFL season or the wild card races in baseball. I am talking about the start of Eastern’s intramural season.

The joy of intramurals is anyone can play. You dont have to be an all-star athlete. You don’t even have to have any athletic talent at all. All you need is your Panther card.

For some, these are the most important weeks of the entire semester. For others, like myself, it is a chance to get off their collective lazy butts and get a little exercise and have a little fun for an hour.

I thought that playing for an intramural soccer team would be that fun chance for me. Little did I realize the fun would go away after just 10 minutes of playing.

When the whistle blew to start the game I was pretty excited to get a chance to play the sport I had played since I was 5 years-old. That excitement carried me for about 10 minutes until I found myself incredibly out of breath. I have come to the conclusion that I am very out of shape.

A guy who used to play soccer year round can no longer make it 10 minutes without wanting to collapse. This made me think about how I could play for as much as 90 minutes a game back then. But now I can’t make it through one half of intramurals.

That’s not even the beginning of it. The team we were playing did not even have enough players to put on the field.

How could I be more tired than those guys when they were playing a man down and were without subs?

Apparently sitting around playing John Madden football on Playstation 2 with my roommates does not count as physical activity and it will not improve my endurance on the field. Going to the rec a few times a week wouldn’t hurt me either.

To make my situation even worse, I found it a little tougher to walk later that evening because of the soreness in my legs. I feel like my body has hit 40 before I have turned 20.

At least I was not the only one to feel old because my roommate was unable to move after his first flag football game.

He was even worse off than I was, but then again I don’t need ankle surgery.

I have now decided that I either need to work out a little more or find myself a new sport.

My choice is softball. I have never looked forward to playing softball more than I have now. At least then I can stand behind home plate and only worry about running when I actually make contact with the ball. So all I can say is bring on the spring.