After your senior night in whatever sport you played in high school, you may have thought your sports career was over.

When you started looking at universities to attend and finally found the one, you may have thought, “That’s great and all, but I still want to play sports because it’s always been a part of my life.”

Luckily for you, Eastern has plenty of intramural sports for you to play with and against fellow students and friends.

With ten sports left to sign up for before the spring semester ends, there are plenty of chances to have fun and be competitive before you go home this summer with that empty feeling.

First things first, you have to know how to sign up to even start looking for sports.

Just go to imleagues.com and click on the sign up tab in the upper right-hand corner. You will be quickly directed to a page that will ask you to enter information about yourself so you can get registered. Helpful tip: Do not choose the option to sign up with Facebook, just enter Eastern Illinois University in the tab asking for your school. Then it just asks the basics, like name, email and graduating class; nothing too crazy.

Once you’re signed up, you can then start browsing through the Eastern page about what sports are available. If you are wanting to play CoRec volleyball, the deadline to sign up as a team is Feb. 28 at midnight.

Players can still be added to teams until March 23, but if you want to register some friends as a team, join by the 28th.

That brings me to the next point: how to play.

If you are the team captain, you will have to read the rules and pass a quiz to be eligible to have a team. Then you can start inviting people to play. If they are already signed up on the website, you can search their name and add them, but if they are new, you will have to send them an email.

As the captain, you can choose what day and time you will play. Or if it is an individual sport, like the pool tournament for which registration ends on March 6, you pick what time you play. If you do not have a team or just want to meet new people, you can sign up as a free agent. The website also allows players to message each other and check when and where games start, and even who is on the roster.

The rest of the sports that are upcoming after a few weeks are as follows:

Indoor kickball, spikeball, 3-pitch softball, tennis doubles, big pink volleyball tourney, bags doubles, spring kanjam and the home run derby.

Do not be scared to jump in and try something new. Do not even be afraid to sign up as a free agent; it is a great way to meet new people and make new friends.

Intramurals can be a really competitive scene, but at the same time, the people you play with and against are all there for fun and talk regularly throughout the games. And if you come out on top, you can walk away with a championship T-shirt. They are pretty nice, trust me, I got one last semester for dodgeball.

So even if you lose in the playoffs or do not even make it to the playoffs, who cares? Just go out there and have a ball.

Dillan Schorfheide is a junior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].