THE HISTORY OF HIGHER EDUCATION RECREATIONAL PROGRAMS,

FACILITIES, AND SERVICES FROM 1900 TO 1960

Ryan Bradshaw
CTCH 821: History of Higher Education in the U.S.
December 15, 2015

Collegiate athletic activities have been a part of the North American college experience
since the first intercollegiate competition in 18521. Athletics on campus continued to grow
throughout the latter half of the 19th century into programs that dedicated great resources of
facilities, instruction, and finances to a select few to provide glory to the institution, while
leaving the general mass of students as orphaned stepchildren when it came to physical
activity.2 Intramural Athletics, created from the latin intra, meaning within, and muralis, meaning
walls (quite literally, Athletics Within the Walls of the institution) started as an endeavor by
students, but quickly growing to require full time institutional administrator control, stepped in to
fill this void and provide athletics for all.3
This paper will attempt to: investigate the expansion of collegiate recreational activities
from 1900 to the 1950s, from its infancy in Intramural Athletics in shared facilities, to its
expansion into dedicated facilities and programs for all students, to better understand how our
definition of campus recreation continues to evolve; show how decisions were made within
institutions to understand how recreation programs, facilities, and services have come to be an
expectation for students on North American campuses; examine the challenges for womens
participation in intramural programs to assist in understanding the challenges faced modern day
outsider populations to participate in recreation programs; and explore the evolution of the
1 NIRSA,

in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus Recreation,

in Campus Recreation: Essentials for the Professional, ed. NIRSA (Champaign, IL: Human
Kinetics, 2008), 22.

Elmer D. Mitchell, Intramural Athletics (New York, NY: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1925), 4-5.

Ibid., 3-5.

concept of student development through intramurals, one of the foundations of the campus
recreation profession today.
Development of Intercollegiate Athletics
In the antebellum period, campuses were devoid of sports as faculty and administrators
focused solely on the academic rigors.4 Due to the austere environments in which faculty
controlled all aspects of student life, riots and other unrest took place as students attempted to
regain some control in their lives. Some campus administrators viewed strenuous athletic activity
as a way to prevent such disturbances, and by 1830, students at several institutions, including
Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Virginia, and Dartmouth College opened
their own gymnasiums on campus for students to expend some built up energy. However,, but
this fad lost steam by the end of the decade5. Students at that time also enjoyed playing their own
variations of ball games with their fellow classmates. Each campus had its own niche activity,
such as baseball or football, but also included games known as townball (a variation of baseball)
and wickets and shinny. The Yale Boat Club was founded in 1843 and Harvard followed suit
shortly thereafter becoming the first two sport clubs on American campuses6. In 1852, two boats
from Yale and one from Harvard raced across a New Hampshire lake, marking the first

Guy Lewis, The Beginning of Organized Collegiate Sport, American Quarterly 22, no. 2,
part 1 (1970): 223. doi: 10.2307/2711645
4

Ibid.

Ibid., 224

intercollegiate competition7. In the years that followed, student- formed baseball, track and field,
and football clubs were created and competitions between institutions followed soon after8.
The beginnings of varsity athletics were essentially intramural in nature. At most institutions in
the 1860s, students had organized their own clubs to practice and play their favorite sports on
campus. This movement initiated in in a loosely organized manner, with impromptu competitions
between different class years. Students then began to form their own organizing committees,
electing representatives to manage the competition structure between the different class years
that culminated in a championship, and classes elected their own managers to coordinate the
internal workings of each of the teams. Pan-Hellenic groups also created their own leagues for
cross-fraternity competition. As clubs became more competitive, administrators took greater
control and athletic activities on campuses focused almost solely on competitions, leading to
services only being provided to the best athletes9. This movement took off in the years following
the Civil War, with student athletes being praised and revered on campus for their athletic
prowess and additional resources being pushed their way10. Baseball became known as the
national game of the United States in the 1860s and intercollegiate competitions of the game
Ralph E. Stewart, A Brief History of the Intramural Movement, NIRSA Journal 17, no. 1
(1992): 12.
7

Lewis, The Beginning of Organized Collegiate Sport, 224.

Mitchell, Intramural Athletics, 4.

10 Helen

Lefkowitz Horowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the
Eighteenth Century to the Present (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 39

took off in popularity, along with football games, which were attracting over 40,000 fans, by the
late 1880s11.
All available resources were poured into the varsity athletic movement, leaving sports for
the mass population of students to be an orphaned stepchild as Elmer Mitchell, the Director of
Intramural Athletics and Associate Professor of Physical Education at the University of Michigan
described it in his 1925 Intramural Athletics, the first published textbook on the subject12. Less
athletically inclined students, who still wanted to be involved in sporting competitions, were left
out with no organized programs or true facilities. This group of students, who were not interested
in taking part in the campus administrator favored exercise routines of the day, which included
calisthenics, marching and drilling, and gymnastics13, went back to what their competitive peers
had done five decades earlier and began organizing their own athletic competitions.
The Birth of Intramurals
It is generally believed that intramurals were born at Cornell University in 1904 when
varsity coaches began providing instruction to non-varsity athletes to help the students improve
their skills for interclass competitions. The president of the institution came to realize that men
who were not participating in intercollegiate competitions, -- either by choice or due to lack of

11 NIRSA,

in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus Recreation,

23.

12 Mitchell, Intramural Athletics, 3

13 P. Mueller

& Elmer D. Mitchell, Intramural sports (New York, NY: The Ronald Press, 1960)

skil -- l, still needed opportunities to engage in competition for exercise14. This marked the start
of playing sports for the sake of playing sports at colleges15. Intramurals continued at Cornell
as student- led, but institution- sponsored, activities over the next decade, as exemplified by a
March 15th, 1910 article in the campus newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, calling for
representatives of all fraternities and clubs to attend a meeting to organize a baseball league,
which the author believed to be an important step towards that ideal of intra-mural college
athletics of which we have so often dreamed and for which we ever pray.16
In the same time period, administrators at Columbia University went so far as to
relinquish all control for inter-class football competitions on their campus and put the onus solely
on students to organize leagues. Following injuries and a general belief that football was a
menace to academic pursuits at the campus, the campus had placed a ban on all competitive
sports activities in early 190717. Students, and the new Director for Athletics, pleaded for the
removal of the injunction to the institutions Committee on Student Organizations. That body, led
by chairman H. Fowler, wrote a statement published in the Columbia Spectator on December 5th,
1907, granting the control and supervision of intramural sports to the Board of Student
14 James

B. Lewis, Tom R. Jones, Gene Lamke, and J. M. Dunn. 1998. "Recreational Sport:
Making the Grade on College Campuses." Parks & Recreation, 12, 72-77.
http://search.proquest.com.mutex.gmu.edu/docview/198166427?accountid=14541

15 NIRSA, in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus Recreation,

24.
16 An

Inter-Organization Baseball League, Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca, NY), Mar. 15, 1910.

17 Prof Lord for Football, Columbia Spectator (New York, NY), Sep. 25, 1907.

Representatives and allowing students to engage in any intramural sport approved by the
Board. This was, however, clarified the following day in a letter to students by Professor
Herbert Lord, a member of the Committee on Student Organizations, published in the Spectator,
giving the committee the right to intervene if they believed there were issues with the
administration of the Board of Student Representatives managing intramurals.
University of Michigan Formalizes Intramurals
During theBetween 1905 andto 1912 timeframe, practically all institutions in the United
States followed Columbias example and entrusted intramural sports to the students. Athletic
departments, however, were experiencing some challenges with this model, including scheduling
confusion at their gymnasiums and fields that were used for intramurals, and the impossibility of
tracking who caused damage to equipment and facilities during intramural play. The geneses of
these challenges were that the intramural program had grown to be too large to be managed by
students18. The University of Michigan began the process of formalizing the operation of
intramural sports in 1912 by first having the Board of Regents approve the free usage of
university fields by students for intramural activities and then appointing part-time duties to
manage the intramural program to the freshman football coach.19 Due to the success of the
program in that inaugural year of formal organization, the university appointed a full time

18

Mitchell, Intramural Athletics, 5

19 Rodney J.

Grambeau, and Robert Bowen, Jr., Intramural Athletics at the University of

Michigan, in Studies of the History of Higher Education in Michigan, ed. Claude Eggertsen
(Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Publishers, 1950), 101

Director of Intramurals for the fall 1913 semester, Floyd Rowe.20 Rowe saw additional success in
his first year on the job, offering 13 different sports with 2,058 male student participants in the
1913-14 academic year.21
The Michigan Daily, the campuss student newspaper, attributed the idea of organized
intramural play to Cornell, stating in October of 1913 that the general health of the student body
(at Cornell) soar(ed) high above the (national) average and both the faculty and the student body
(were) highly pleased with the results.22 The paper continues on with some advice for the
mediocre and the narrow chester, informing them that intramural athletics exist for them and
that they should take advantage of this opportunity to get away from their stuffy rooms for an
hour or so each day.23
The job remained Rowes until 1917, when the mass exodus of male students from
campus to fight in World War I led to the suspension of the intramural program at Michigan until
1919, when it returned under the direction of Elmer D. Mitchell, a current coach at the institution
appointed due to Rowes having accepted another position during the war.24 The appointment of
20 University of Michigan, Office of Student Life. 100 Years of Recreational Sports. 2013.

https://recsports.umich.edu/timeline/874/100-years-recreational-sports
21 Grambeau

and Bowen, Intramural Athletics at the University of Michigan, 102

22 Michigan

Copies Cornells Intercollege Athletics, Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca, NY), Oct. 11,

1913.

23 Ibid.

24 Grambeau and Bowen, Intramural Athletics at the University of Michigan, 102

Mitchell as director would have a lasting impact on Michigan and the field of Campus
Recreation, as will be seen at intervals throughout this paper.

Ohio States Athletics for Every Man

In December of 1913, Jack Wilce, the coach of the Ohio State University Buckeyes football
team, introduced the idea of intramural sports on campus as an opportunity for Athletics for
Every Man.25 Wilce presented his plan to the Athletic Committee of the Student Council and
then published it two days later in the December 10th edition of the Ohio State Lantern, the
campus newspaper. His plan called for a representative from each college to meet to form a
sports committee to govern intramural on campus.
According to Wilce:
The biggest objection to inter-collegiate athletics at the present time is found in the
limited number of students who are able to participate. Standards are raised too high and
the average student has little opportunity to take part in athletic activities unless be
possesses extra ability. Exclusive attention to inter-collegiate athletics in the past at Ohio
State has prevented many men from working out their "natural play impulse" in the
proper way, with correspondingly bad results.

25 Wilce Plans

10, 1913

to Have Athletics for Every Man, Ohio State Lantern (Columbus, OH), Dec.

Inter-collegiate athletics more than justify their existence in many ways but the system
should and will work hand in hand with an intra-mural athletic system which recognizes
the needs and demands of the general student body.26
It is interesting to note that less than three months prior to Wilces groundbreaking
announcement, he was quoted as saying "Thirty-five eligible football candidates is, of course, an
absurdity in a university which has nearly 2,500 men from which to choose material.27 The issue
was that only 35 men were interested and eligible to try out for the institutions varsity football
team. When put in context with comments at Michigan regarding the mediocre and the narrow
chester, it can be seen that an issue existed on campuses of the time with students being in
proper physical condition in order to participate in intercollegiate athletics. Recruiting practices
of the day did not involve the modern techniques of scouting high schools nationwide, but
instead coaches relied on finding new athletes on campus.28 By creating Athletics for All,
Wilce was creating his own recruit evaluation tool to help both the students on campus become
healthier and the intercollegiate athletics program improve on the field.
Intramurals at Ohio State got off to a rapid start one short month later with 13 basketball
teams and a wrestling league.29 By 1917, the intramural program at Ohio State had become
26

Ibid.

27 Wilce Pleads

for more Football Men, Ohio State Lantern (Columbus, OH), Sep. 16, 1913.

28 Paul

E. Wilson (current Historian for NIRSA, Leaders in Collegiate Recreation), personal

communication with author, Dec. 10, 2015.

29 Intra-mural Sports

are in Full Blast, Ohio State Lantern (Columbus, OH), Jan. 14, 1914.

10

popular enough that an entire edition of the student newspaper was dedicated to the third annual
indoor intramural meet, which featured over 700 students competing in indoor track and field
style events, including a 35 yard dash, three-legged race, and a human burden race, breaking the
campus record for participation in a single event. Participants in the event were grouped by
major and class, fraternity, boarding-club, and sorority.30
Similar styles of programs were implemented at the University of Texas at Austin31, the
University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin32, and the Oregon Agricultural College (today
known as Oregon State University)33 by the end of the decade.34 Students in these programs also
competed by class and fraternity, but also by military branch following the war, and at some
institutions as independents.35 The concept gained such popularity on campuses across the
country that in 1917, that the incoming athletic director at the University of Missouri, W. E.
30 Break All Records, Ohio State Lantern (Columbus, OH), Mar. 31, 1917.

University of Texas at Austin, Division of Recreational Sports, History, (n.d.),

http://www.utrecsports.org/about/history
31

32 Associated

Press, Missouri Coach Favors Intramural Athletics, Daily Illini (Champaign,

IL), Sep. 23, 1917.

33 Oregon Agricultural College,

The Beaver, vol. 11 (Corvallis, OR: Associated Students of

Oregon State University, 1918), 50.

34 NIRSA,

in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus Recreation,

24.

35 Intramural Baseball League,

Daily Illini (Champaign, IL), Apr. 2, 1919.

11

Meanwell, announced that he believed the only way to save and continue intercollegiate athletics
was through the development of intramural programs to introduce all men to the sport to enhance
their willingness to support the intercollegiate teams. He pointed to his success at the University
of Wisconsin in growing support for the schools basketball team after having had 512 male
students play in an intramural basketball league the previous year.36
Concept of Athletics for All
The foundation of the Athletics for All movement appears to start at Cornell in 1905, with
President John G. Schurman stating that the institution was putting too many resources to foster
the highest development of the few and to the neglect of the many37. Schurman announced that
the institution would devote more resources into the development of instructional programs to
teach men the skills of the games for health reasons38. The trend was agreed upon by both
physical educators of the day, who believe that more competition would increase public interest
in their work, and by coaches, like Wilce at Ohio State and Meanwell at Missouri, who could use
intramurals to create interest in their sports and enable them to evaluate new members for the
intercollegiate teams.39 40
36 Associated Press, Missouri Coach Favors Intramural Athletics, Sep. 23, 1917.
37 Development

of Athletics for All, Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca, NY), Oct. 10, 1905.

38 Ibid.

39 Stewart,

A Brief History of the Intramural Movement, 12.

40 Henry F. Kallenberg,

Mass Athletics Everybody in the Game, American Physical

Education Review 21, no. 5 (1916): 298. Doi: 10.1080/23267224.1916.10650425

12

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) also investigated the concept of serving
the largest possible number of students with a report presented at their December, 1913
conference showing the growing interest in intramurals for all at colleges across the country.41
In 1916, Dr. Henry Kallenberg of the Young Mens Christian Association College in Chicago,
published a report in the American Physical Education Review calling for a more formalized
organization of intramurals at American institutions. He claimed that many institutions were
saying that they are conducting intramural athletics on the basis that they offer students facilities
to conduct their student organized leagues, but that true intramurals need a definite program and
direction to provide all students with the social and educational values of athletics.42 He
continued on to propose a points system to encourage as many individual student athletes and
their respective teams to participate in a wide range of directed play activities in order to enhance
the social and educational values, and a four step procedure to build the movement to conduct
intramurals in the same way that classroom studies take place.43 Kallenberg believed there to be a
sufficient number of colleges in all four corners of the country already taking part in intramurals
to point the right way to the hundreds of colleges without intramurals.44 Point systems continue
to be used in intramural and club sport programs across the country today.

41 Ibid., 297.
42 Ibid.,

298

43 Ibid.,

298-299

44 Ibid.,

300

13

The conclusion of World War I helped further stress the importance of intramurals by
demonstrating the importance of having a population that was physically fit and active.45
Physicals of servicemen entering the service during the war indicated that previous physical
activity training in high school and college was not working, so something different needed to be
done. Servicemen returning from combat wanted to be involved in competition, which helped to
grow the intramural movement.46 An example of this growth can be seen by the mid-1920s, when
over a third of the male students at Ohio State participated in the intramural indoor
championships47, along with more institutions, including Kansas State College, the University of
Minnesota, who entrusted the new Department of Physical Education and Athletics to oversee
intramural contests, and the University of Oklahoma.48 1925 also marked the release of the first
book on the subject of intramurals, Intramural Athletics, by Dr. Elmer D. Mitchell of the
University of Michigan.49
Intramural programs continued to grow throughout the first half of the 20th century, with more
institutions offering programs and more students joining leagues. The University of Minnesota,

45 Associated

46 NIRSA,

Press, Missouri Coach Favors Intramural Athletics, Sep. 23, 1917.

in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus Recreation,

24.

47 Athletics for All, Feb. 27, 1924.

48 NIRSA,

25.
49 Ibid.

in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus Recreation,

14

for example, went from having 5,500 men participating in intramurals on campus in 1923-2450 to
9,599 in 1935-36.51 The success of the programs also spread to the high school level, with over
70% of high schools surveyed nationwide in a 1932 study having intramurals for male students,
with over 60% of those schools having started the program in the previous eight years.52 A lull in
growth occurred during the Second World War, as facilities on campus were reallocated to
training soldiers, resulting in a 50% decrease in participations at the University of Minnesota
from 1943 to 194453, stagnating the growth of intramurals until after the war, when returning
servicemen in strong physical condition wanted to continue their involvement in competitive
activities.54
Intramural Sports for Women
As Michigan, Ohio State, Cornell, and others were starting intramural programs, the primary
focus was for male students, as seen by Wilces call for Athletics for Every Man. In the
specially dedicated intramural edition of the Ohio State Lantern in March of 1917, the question
50 L.

D. Coffman, The Presidents Report for the Year 1923-24, (Minneapolis, MN, 1924),

198.

51 L.

D. Coffman, The Biennial Report of the President of the University of Minnesota to the
Board of Regents 1934-1936, (Minneapolis, MN, 1936), 304.

52 P. R. Brammel, Intramural and Interscholastic Athletics. Bulletin, 1932 No. 17, (Washington,

DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, Education Office, 1932), 10-12.

53 Walter Coffey, The Biennial Report of the President of the University of Minnesota to the

Board of Regents 1942-1944, (Minneapolis, MN, 1944), 304.

54

Paul E. Wilson, personal communication with author, Dec. 10, 2015.

15

is asked as to when intramurals for female students will be introduced. The article mentions
interclass basketball games that have already taken place, but there is a lack of a permanent
option. The reason for suggesting such a league is that female students deserve and need the
same benefits as their male counterparts.55
Evidence of competitions for women can be found in 1915, with feminine intramural baseball
competitions taking place at Columbia and a team of students from the affiliated womens
school, Barnard College, defeating a team of students forming the Teachers College team.56 The
Columbia Spectator, two months previously, had even mockingly reported betting odds for a
sorority track meet at Ohio State with Nine sororities at Ohio State University have picked relay
teams of four each and a manager to represent them in an intramural track meet. The odds at
present are fives boxes of fudge against a powder puff that the TriDelta aggregation will bring
home the bacon.57
Despite the public teasing, women continued to want to participate in intramurals in large
numbers. The University of Texas at Austin was the first institution to create a separate
Department of Intramural Sports for women in 1921 by appointing Anna Hiss the first Director
of the department.58 Hiss offered programs in tennis, golf, riding, archery, fencing, badminton,
55 Womens Rights,

56 Revenge for

Ohio State Lantern (Columbus, OH), Mar. 31, 1917.

Barnard, Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca, NY), May 13, 1915.

57 Sororities Choose Athletes, Columbia Daily Spectator (New York, NY), Mar. 27, 1915.
58

24.

NIRSA, in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus Recreation,

16

bowling, tumbling, and riflery, among others. These programs, not competitive in nature, focused
primarily to serve the social and instructional needs of female students.59
Focus on Womens Skill Development
The focus on womens sports as being instructional in nature continued throughout the
1920s. The University of Minnesota had a Department of Physical Education for Women in 1923
that offered 4 interclass/intersorority/interdormitory tournaments for female student in the 192324 year. However, in order to be eligible to participate in the field hockey, basket-ball, baseball,
tennis tournaments, or the swim meet, the women had to attend eight to twelve practice sessions
before the first competition.60 There did not appear to be any such requirement for male students,
although practice times were offered at Minnesota and Ohio State for mens intramural teams.
Pauline Hodgson, at the time a graduate student at the University of Michigan (she later
went on to complete her doctorate in physiology and serve as the chair of the Department of
Physical Education for Women, and Associate Director of the combined Department of Physical
Education at the University of California, Berkeley)61, presented a paper to the American
Physical Education Associations 1927 Annual Convention in Des Moines, IA, that explained
this trend. Hodgson considered the platform of intramurals to be that every girl receives the

59

University of Texas at Austin, Division of Recreational Sports, History, (n.d.),

60 Coffman, The Presidents Report for the Year 1923-24, 210.

61 University of California, Pauline Hodgson, Physical Education: Berkeley,

(1985), http://texts.cdlib.org/view?
docId=hb4d5nb20m&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00070&toc.depth=1&t
oc.id=

17

benefit of athletic competition. To her, in order to achieve full participation, skill and/or interest
were the most important factors, as skills in a sport only develop through interest in practicing
the sports, yet true satisfaction of participation comes from playing the game skillfully.
Therefore, to get women interested in playing sports, the focus had to be first on skill
development as a relatively small proportion of college girls have had adequate opportunity to
develop that degree of skill which makes the joy of a keen game a source of satisfaction.62
Hodgson believed that at the University of Michigan, only about 5% of the female
population possessed the required skills to fully enjoy participating in sports, so to appeal to the
masses, her department focused on appealing to the group spirit of sororities and dormitories,
with great success of involvement. The challenge remained off-campus independent students,
who represented 50% of the female population, and finding ways to increase their involvement
(a challenge still experience by Intramural Directors today). One option that was attempted
involved grouping women who lived in local neighborhoods together on teams based on
geographic location, which failed due to the fact that the women had nothing other than
proximity binding them together.63 Still, Michigan offered a female intramural program that saw
rapid growth from 76 teams in 1924-25 competing in three main sports to over 210 in four main
sports in 1926-27.64 The biggest challenge that limited involvement, and with that limited skill
development, was facility space. Most activities were run as single elimination tournaments, not

62 Pauline Hodgson,

The Development of Intramural Athletics for College Women, American

Physical Education Review 32, no. 7 (1927): 491.
63 Ibid.,

492.

64 Ibid.,

494.

18

round robin style leagues, causing teams with less skill to be eliminated after only one game and
stifling any hope of creating that interest in developing more skills in the sport.65
A focus on skill development existed for administrators as well, as seen through the
afternoon session of the inaugural Mid-Winter Conference of the Womens Athletic Section of
the American Physical Education Association in 1935, focusing on techniques for teaching
activities to large groups, to ensure that a large number of people would gain the skills necessary
to enjoy recreational sports games and in turn be able to teach others.66
Womens Athletic Associations
Another trend at the time was to have Womens Athletic Associations (WAA) on campus.
Institutions, including the University of Michigan67, the University of Minnesota68, Purdue
University69, the University of Texas at Austin70, and the University of California at Los Angeles

65 Ibid.

66 Elizabeth

Noyes, Recreational Athletics for Women, Journal of Health and Physical

Education 7, no. 2 (1936): 127. Doi: 10.1080/23267240.1936.10627172

67 Ibid.

68 Coffman,

The Presidents Report for the Year 1923-24, 210.

69 Purdue University Libraries, Archives

and Special Collections, Womens Athletic

Association, (1926). http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/pada/id/237/rec/1

70 University of Texas at Austin, Division of Recreational Sports, History, (n.d.),

19

(UCLA)71 all had their own organizations that, despite having the same name on each campus,
worked independently of each other and reported to their respective Departments of Physical
Education or Departments of Physical Education for Women. The basic reason of existence for
the campuss WAAs were to guide the recreational activities of the institutions Physical
Education Program for Women.72 At UCLA, the WAAs work was within physical education
classes for women and enrollment in the class was the only way to participate in competitions,
until the WAA took over all intramurals for women as the Womens Athletic Board for the 192930 academic year.73 The WAA had requirements for women to participate in sponsored activities,
including passing a sport specific rule and technic test, maintaining a C average in all
coursework, and receiving an A or B in the particular course they were enrolled in, similar GPA
requirements to participating in Club Sports or extramural tournaments today. Womens
intramurals at UCLA did see great success under for the WAA, with 29 of the 33 sororities on
campus participating in the inter-sorority basketball tournament and over 1,100 women
participating in total in 1929.74 The existence of WAAs continued to grow, and by 1936, 66 of 77
institutions surveyed had their own WAA on campus.75

71 Hazel J.

Cubberley, An Intensive Intramural Program, The Journal of Health and Physical

Education 1, no. 1 (1930): 29. Doi: 10.1080/23267240.1930.10623408

72 Norma

M. Leavitt and Margaret M. Duncan, The Status of Intramural Programs for

Women, Research Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1937): 70.

73 Ibid.,

74 Ibid.

53.

20

It should be noted here that in the 1920s, womens intercollegiate sports were nonexistent at many campuses and opposed by the Athletic Conference of American College
Women.76 A primary concern at the time was the commercialism of a female version of the game,
which administrators wanted to avoid.77 As such, a tri-party play date between the womens
intramural champions for field hockey, basketball, and tennis at Stanford University, the
University of California, and Mills College78, was cancelled in 1926 because administrators felt it
too closely resembled intercollegiate athletics.79 An idea of the time to combat this came from the
Michigan President, Dr. Little, who suggested a full team competition, in which women
competed in multiple activities over the course of a week-end, including music, debating, drama,
and intramurals, focusing on having the best overall team in order to win.80 This trend, however,
never did pick up steam.
Womens athletics did continue to grow, under the direction of the National Association
for Girls and Womens Sports (NAGWS), which from 1907 provided independent guidebooks
75 Leavitt and

Duncan, The Status of Intramural Programs for Women, 70.

76 Coffman,

The Presidents Report for the Year 1923-24, 210.

77 Hodgson,

The Development of Intramural Athletics for College Women, 496

78Coffman,

The Presidents Report for the Year 1923-24, 210.

79 Hodgson,

80 Ibid.,

The Development of Intramural Athletics for College Women, 496.

495-496.

21

with distinct rules for womens sports that were different than those for men.81 Womens
intercollegiate athletics remained under the auspices of the NAGWS rules until womens sports
were absorbed into the NCAA following the passing of Title IX legislation in 1972.82
Growth of Womens Intramurals
A thorough investigation of the Status of Intramural Programs for Women was published in the
1937 edition of the American Physical Education Associations Research Quarterly. The study
found some impressive stats, including that 76 of the 77 institutions that returned questionnaires
sponsored intramural programs for women. Most institutions still sponsored programs primarily
for group dynamics, but one allowed an open division. Popular sports for intramural play
included basketball, tennis, archery, swimming, baseball, ping-pong, golf, riding, and 3
variations of dancing (modern, tap-clog, and folk). Over two-thirds of the institutions still
required women to practice in order to take part in competitions.83
Two of the primary challenges for womens intramural departments at the time were facilities
and finances. 67 of the 77 institutions did not charge anything for women to participate in
intramurals, but instead relied on funds that came from the institutions general student fee. The
report notes that a disproportional amount of that fee tended to go to mens intramurals and
81 Shawn

Ladda, The National Association for Girls and Women in Sport, Journal of Physical
Education, Recreation & Dance 80, no. 7, (2009): 48-49. Doi:
10.1080/07303084.2009.10598357

82 Paul

83

E. Wilson, Personal communication with author, December 10, 2015.

Leavitt and Duncan, The Status of Intramural Programs for Women, 69-71.

22

mens athletics. Proper facilities and the availability of facilities outside of class times was also
cited as an obstacle, one that would hold true for both mens and womens intramural programs
throughout the first half of the 20th century. A similar survey of small colleges in the 1940s found
lack of facilities to be a challenge, but also male staff overseeing intramurals for men and women
as an obstacle to program growth.84 The study also did note a primary benefit was to offer
instructional opportunities to women to encourage their participation.85 Sufficient facilities do
continue to be a challenge at many institutions across the country at this present time.
A study conducted at UCLA by Beverly Young Moore and published in 1941 identified found
that most female students on campus were participating in less than four hours of physical
activity, but that the majority wanted to spend more time doing so. Their main obstacles will
sound familiar to any Campus Recreation professional today, particularly those at commuter
institutions: lack of time, lack of companions, outside work, and commuting. The study also
notes that contrary to common opinion, neither the damage done to appearance by activity
nor lack of skill are of particular importance in deterring participation in physical activity.86
The biggest change that had occurred at that point in the 1900s was that intramural programs had
moved from being sponsored, directed, and financed by students to being financed and

84 Betty Carson,

A Survey of Intramural Programs for Women in Small Colleges and

Universities (masters thesis, Oregon State College, 1943), 20-21.

85 Ibid.,

22,

86 Beverly Young

Moore, The Attitude of College Women Toward Physical Activity as a

Means of Recreation, Research Quarterly 12, no. 4 (1941): 723.

23

administered by a Physical Education for Womens department.87 However, Purdue University

started the second half of the 20th century with a game changing idea, a stand-alone student
Recreation Center, financed by a student fee, fully co-educational.88 This model of student
recreation center with a Campus Recreation department that operates intramurals for both male
and female students, which we consider the gold standard today, was 10-15 years ahead of its
time. At most institutions, the idea of having a separate mens and womens programs did not
depart until the advent of Title IX in 1972.89
Student Development
As intramural programs developed away from student control and into the hands of
administrators, students were still needed to act as team managers, officials, and student
representatives to serve on the intramural committees at the various institutions. The University
of Minnesota began training student officials in 1923 to oversee all intramural contests90, while
Ohio State University used student officials for track and field meets91 and also regularly

87 Ibid.,

71.

88 Howard Taylor (Director of Purdue Recreational Sports), personal communication with

author, December 14, 2015.

89 Paul

E. Wilson, Personal communication with author, December 10, 2015.

90

Coffman, The Presidents Report for the Year 1923-24, 196.

91

Intramural Officials Announced, Ohio State Lantern (Columbus, OH), Mar. 31, 1917.

24

solicited to hire additional student officials.92 UCLA identified in 1929 the important opportunity
for physical education majors to take charge of intramural games as referees and scorekeepers,
gaining valuable experience for their future careers.93
Student skill development was also evident in the recruitment of students to serve on the
intramural committee at Ohio State and the WAA at Michigan, which gave student managers
direction on how to organize their classmates, but then let them show their worth in leading
others by having them recruit and manage their teams.94 Other students at Michigan were
assigned marketing responsibilities, primarily building a relationship with the Michigan Daily to
ensure coverage of WAA events. The involvement of student leaders as assistants was important
to Michigan Director of Intramurals, Elmer Mitchell, but he did stress that a central authority
figure in the form of a staff or faculty member was essential to the overall success of an
intramural program.95
A link was also made between a male students participation in intramurals and their
academic success. Elmer Mitchell, in his 1939 revision of Intramural Sports, noted anecdotally
that fraternities who tend to rank in the top-10 in the overall intramural standings also place
highly in the fraternity scholastic rankings. Hackensmith and Miller similarly found in 1938 that

92 Call for

I-M Officials, Ohio State Lantern (Columbus, OH), Mar. 31, 1926.

93 Cubberley, An

Intensive Intramural Program, 53.

94 Hodgson,

The Development of Intramural Athletics for College Women, 495.

95 Mitchell,

Intramural Athletics, 17.

25

juniors and seniors at the University of Kentucky who participated in intramurals saw a marked
effect on their academic grade. A more complete survey at the University of Oregon, comprising
five years of academic records and intramural participation records found that men who
participated in Intramurals as a whole had a 0.12 Grade Point Average (GPA) higher than nonparticipants, showing the value of participating in intramurals.96 This is impressive as it almost
identically matches current literature on the academic benefits of student involvement in campus
activities97, which shows about a 0.1 out of 4.0 increase in GPA for students engaged on
campus.98
This early belief in student development and transferable skill development through
recreational activities continues on campuses today with student leaders continuing to serve as
team captains, student employees, game officials, game supervisors, building managers,
marketers, and leadership board members.99
Recreation Facilities on Campus
96 Paul

R. Washke, A Study of Intramural Sports Participation and Scholastic Attainment,

Research Quarterly 11, no. 2 (1940): 22-27.

97 George D.

Kuh, Ty M. Cruce, Rick Shoup, Jillian Kinzie, & Robert M. Gonyea, Unmasking
the effects of student engagement on first-year college grades and persistence. Journal of
Higher Education 79, no. 5 (2008): 540-563.

98 John D. Foubert & Lauren U. Grainger, Effects of Involvement in Clubs and Organizations

on the Psychosocial Development of First-Year and Senior College Students NASPA Journal 43,
no. 1 (2014): 166-182.
99 William Ehling

(Executive Director of George Mason University Recreation), personal

communication with author, December 11, 2015.

26

A recurring trend throughout this paper has been a lack of adequate facilities for intramural
programs. The early student led leagues were afforded time to use on campus facilities, such as
baseball fields and tennis courts, to run intramural leagues100, but those facilities were shared
space with varsity athletics or other groups on campus. In his annual report to the president in
1924, the Intramural Director of Minnesota makes this abundantly clear:
The greatest need in intramural athletics continues to be a lack of indoor and outdoor
playing facilities. We are confronted with the most discouraging difficulties at times,
especial1y in basket-ball indoors and in baseball and other spring games outdoors
because of the large number of students who desire to play and the depressingly
inadequate amount of playing facilities. At present we believe we are getting a maximum
return from the playing facilities we have. During the winter quarter, for example, the
Armory was in use from the first hour in the morning until eleven o'clock at night. The
free space over the noon hour was occupied largely by faculty recreation groups which
frequently numbered over fifty men. After the regular activities were over late in the
afternoon, intramural athletic practice and contests lasted until the closing of the Armory
after eleven o'clock at night. From a hygienic standpoint, the best time for recreation is
from four to six in the afternoon; however, it is better to have some definite play
provision as late as ten o'clock at night than not to have any at all.101
A Dedicated Intramural Facility

100

Kallenberg, Mass Athletics Everybody in the Game, 298.

101

Coffman, The Presidents Report for the Year 1923-24, 197.

27

The University of Michigan was the first institution to take steps to build a standalone
building dedicated primarily for intramural use. Athletic Director, Fielding Yost, organized a
bond drive in late 1926 to raise funds to construct a new football stadium on campus, with bonds
going for $500 each and guaranteeing the holder 10 years of game ticket purchases between the
35 yards lines. The bond sale was progressing so well that an Intramural Building and a Field
House for Women were added to the plans.102 The Intramural Building ended up being larger
than originally planned due to Yost selling 400 additional bonds, and featured basketball courts,
squash courts, handball courts, indoor baseball diamonds, boxing rings, a wrestling room, indoor
tennis courts, volley ball courts, indoor golf facilities and a swimming pool measuring 35 x 75
feet.103 Varsity swimming was the only non-recreational activity hosted in the facility. The
facility opened at a cost of approximately $750,000 in 1928104. That same year the Womens
Athletic Building was completed, with the football stadium which helped finance all of the
construction opening the following year.105
Ohio State, not to be outdone by their Big Ten Conference rival, announced a similar,
grandiose $2.25 million plan to enclose their football stadium, that included building a $500,000
intramural specific building, a $250,000 natatorium, and a $300,000 womens athletic building in
102

Stadium Bonds at Michigan Selling Fast, Ohio State Lantern, Dec. 20, 1926.

Michigans Building Plan Includes New Intramural Home, Ohio State Lantern, Jul. 29,
1927.
103

104

Grambeau and Bowen, Intramural Athletics at the University of Michigan, 102.

105

University of Michigan, Office of Student Life. 100 Years of Recreational Sports. 2013.

28

November of 1928.106 The project was later scaled down due to challenges in raising enough
funds at the time of the Great Depression, but a natatorium and mens gymnasium building
opened in 1931107 containing handball, volleyball, and basketball courts, plus a spacious
swimming pool.108 The new facility helped the intramural program grow to over 10,000 male
students and 1,000 female student participants by 1937.109
Facilities arrived on other campuses as well in the early 1930s, including a new Physical
Education building at the University of Minnesota that allowed for more intramural
competitions110, a Field House to house athletics and student activities at Clemson University
(although the final, largest, portion of the edifice was not completed until 1941 due to the great
depression)111, and a Womens Gymnasium (later renamed Anna Hiss Gym) at the University of

106

$2,250,000 Athletic Plant Planned, Ohio State Lantern, Nov. 2, 1928.

Ohio State University, Recreational Sports. Rec Sports Historical Timeline. 2013.
https://recsports.osu.edu/who-we-are/rec-sports-historical-timeline
107

108 Alfred

109

H. Heizer, Introducing Interesting Intramurals, Ohio State Lantern, Oct. 8, 1931.

Ohio State University, Recreational Sports. Rec Sports Historical Timeline. 2013.

Coffman, The Biennial Report of the President of the University of Minnesota to the Board
of Regents 1934-1936, 320.
110

111 Amy Burke,

University, n.d.).

Fike Recreation Center History Installation (class project, Clemson

29

Texas at Austin.112 While these buildings did lead to increased participation, they were not
dedicated solely to intramural use. Surveys of intramural leaders on campuses still indicated a
lack of facilities as being a primary barrier to serving more students.113114
Effect of World War II on Facilities
As the country entered World War II, facilities and equipment were repurposed to house
and train soldiers preparing for battle, which combined with a decreased enrollment, reduced the
number of students participating in intramurals on campus115, with the number cut by more than
half at Minnesota.116 This decrease was relatively short lived, as the return of servicemen from
the war and the introduction of the G.I. bill led to increased enrollment on campuses nationwide
and record participation in intramurals in the late 1940s.117118 Despite the increased participation,
112

University of Texas at Austin, Division of Recreational Sports, History, (n.d.).

113

Leavitt and Duncan, The Status of Intramural Programs for Women, 69-71.

Carson, A Survey of Intramural Programs for Women in Small Colleges and Universities,
20-21.
114

115

Grambeau and Bowen, Intramural Athletics at the University of Michigan, 103.

Coffey, The Biennial Report of the President of the University of Minnesota to the Board
of Regents 1942-1944, 168.
116

117

Grambeau and Bowen, Intramural Athletics at the University of Michigan, 103.

Sandy Postol, More than 5,000 Individuals, 150 teams to Compete, Daily Illini
(Champaign, IL), Oct. 2, 1947.
118

30

facilities for Intramurals and Recreation stayed stagnant through this time period with no real
construction of intramural facilities at that time.119
Purdue Sets a Standard
Frederick Hovde, as president of Purdue University from 1946 to 1971, had a great
influence in shaping modern recreation on college campuses. Hovde, an avid rower120, believed
that you cannot have first-class professional schools without research The campus must be,
vis--vis the student body and faculty, an environment for learning.121 This environment
included recreational facilities open to all students, not just members of the institutions varsity
squad. This vision was instrumental in Hovde getting not only the Board of Trustees, but also the
students of Purdue, on board to invest in a Recreational Sports Center to be used solely for
recreational (intramural) activities.122 The students agree, in 1954, to begin paying a mandatory
student fee for the new building, something that was unique for the time123, to pay off the bonds
the Board of Trustees authorized to be sold to build the $2.5 million facility.124 During the same
time period, Hovde was also able to secure funding for recreation facilities at satellite campuses,
119

Paul E. Wilson, Personal communication with author, Dec. 10, 2015.

120

Howard Taylor, personal communication with author, Dec. 14, 2015.

121 Robert W. Topping, Century and Beyond : The History of Purdue University. (West

Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 1988).

122

Howard Taylor, personal communication with author, Dec. 14, 2015.

123

Ibid.

31

such as Purdue Calumet in 1955.125 The Recreational Sports Center opened its doors to students
for the 1957 school year.126
Some unique characteristics of the facility were that it was only open to the mass of
students for recreational athletic activities. No physical education classes or varsity athletic
activities were to be scheduled in the facility. Faculty and staff of Purdue were also not originally
allowed to use the facilities, a policy that changed after a few years with the introduction of paid
memberships to the facility for faculty and staff.127 Most importantly, the facility and its
programs were open to male and female students, at a time when womens athletics were still
primarily playing under the rules of the NAGWS and governed separate from mens athletics. As
previously stated, this did not change at most institutions until 15 years later with the
introduction of Title IX legislation.
Hovdes vision helped legitimize the importance of recreational sports, open to all
students, on college campuses, a trend that has continued to grow from that time until today. The
Purdue facility created a need to have a comprehensive recreation facility, open to all students,
as a way of recruiting incoming students. Following its opening, additional facilities were slowly
added over the next decade until an arms-race appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s to
124 Purdue University. Board of Trustees Meeting. Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 21,

1954, (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 1954).

125 Purdue University. Board of Trustees Meeting. Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes October

19, 1955, (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 1955).

Purdue University, Division of Recreational Sports, Support Rec Sports, (n.d.).
http://www.purdue.edu/recsports/development/givingBack/index.php
126

127 Howard Taylor, personal communication with author, Dec. 14, 2015.

32

build the best new facilities to surpass peer institutions. This continues to hold true today as we
see campuses continually building recreation facilities to attract the best and brightest incoming
students.128
Founding of a Professional Organization for Intramurals
In 1948, Dr. William Wasson, a former pupil of Elmer Mitchells at the University of
Michigan,129 who at the time was working in New Orleans at the Historically Black College
(HBC), Dillard University, as a biology teacher, head track coach, and assistant football and
basketball coach saw a need to examine the intramural programs of 11 HBC and compile a
written report based on the data titled A Comparative Study of Intramural Programs in Negro
Colleges.130 In 1950, he shared that compiled report with the 11 HBCs he studied and invited the
male and female Intramural Directors of those campuses to attend a meeting at his home campus
on February 22, 1950. The National Intramural Association (NIA) was formed at this meeting.131
According to NIRSA (the current name of the NIA) historian, Paul E. Wilson, Wassons goal was
to standardize intramural play at HBC schools as a result of the high level of competition.
Intercollegiate athletic coaches were still using intramurals as a recruiting ground to find their

128

Paul E. Wilson, Personal communication with author, December 10, 2015.

129 NIRSA, NIRSA History, (n.d.). http://nirsa.net/nirsa/about/history/

NIRSA, in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus

Recreation, 25.
130

131

Ibid.

33

new recruits, which was posing challenges for the smooth operation of student officiated
programs.
The NIA 1950 meeting was not the first ever meeting of Intramural Directors from
multiple campuses as the Recreation Directors of Big Ten schools had been hosting annual
conferences together since 1922.132 However, the NIA was open to more individuals from all
institutions and was racially integrated by the 1952 conference. It also changed its name to the
National Intramural and Recreation Association that year, although members continued to refer
to the association as the NIA as intramurals was still the cornerstone of all recreational activities
on campus.133 The 1950s ended with the NIA becoming an affiliate of the American Association
of Health, Physical Education and Recreation (AAHPER), dropping Recreation from its name,
and baring women from membership in the association (which had nothing to do with the
AAHPER affiliation, as that group had female members).134 This ban lasted 12 years until the
association president invited two women to attend the 1971 conference and urged the
membership to rewrite the constitution.135

Big Ten Recreational Sports Directors Association meeting notes from 1922-1992 are stored
in the physical archives of the University of Michigan:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhlead/umich-bhl-9649?rgn=main;view=text
132

NIRSA, in consultation with Paul E. Wilson, History and Evolution of Campus

Recreation, 29-30.
133

134

Ibid., 30.

135

Ibid.

34

In 1975, the associations name was changed to the National Intramural-Recreational

Sports Association (NIRSA),136 which to this day acts as the primary professional organization
for Leaders in Collegiate Recreation.

136 Ibid.

35

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Ryan, you did a great job in investigating and thoroughly bringing to life the history
of intermurals and recreation, and putting it in the context of change over time. I
got to the end of your paper, though, and was surprised not to see a conclusion that
tied together your findings and left the reader with a clear understanding of what
this all means. Terrific work in using primary sources; they really illuminated the
story.
GRADE: B+