By Ryan Lynch
Some find joy in the sport and some lack the ability to participate on a school team. This league of their own gives them all an opportunity to prove a point.
Intramural basketball is a popular activity at Delta High School. Eighty-one students spend their Saturday mornings playing pick-up basketball games in the DHS gyms.
These kids consist of athletes, non-athletes and those in between.
Health teacher Mr. Jacob Van Pelt organizes these games. This is his first year being the director of the intramural basketball league.
Senior Nate Manor played last year on Big Bubba Elite, who won the championship. He is back this year on a new team to try to recreate the same result as he did last year.
Manor’s new team has a unique name: “‘Make A Swish’ because it’s always a blessing when we make a bucket,” Manor said.
Manor played organized basketball all through middle school and his freshman year. He said he hated playing school ball, and that’s when he found intramurals.
“There are too many rules (in school ball), and I just like to go out there and have fun and not worry about fouling out,” Manor said.
Many other players also had previous experience on a team. For instance Lincoln Koons, another student who participates in intramural basketball.
Koons, a freshman, is in his first year playing intramural basketball. He played in middle school at Muncie Northside and then moved to Delta. He then played school ball for Delta Middle School in 7th grade, then his 8th grade year he broke his foot scratching basketball season off of his agenda.
After that Koons lost the love for the sport. Koons, like Manor, likes to go play the game of basketball but doesn’t want to worry about the mental aspect of it.
Koons plays for Lunchly Elite. Although Koons has only played for one year he has built some good memories.
“My favorite memory so far is when my teammate Max Calhoun was dribbling the ball around and then shot it from half court and missed the goal completely,” Koons said.
This league contains 11 different teams all hooping for the same goal.
Senior Zane Cline is looking forward to accomplishing a 3peat (three championships in a row). Cline played organized basketball up until his freshman year.
Standing at 6-foot-3 some may ask why he took a different path from basketball.
“I don’t play for the school team because I’m able to work out for baseball season, but by playing intramurals I can still play basketball with my friends,” Cline said.
Cline chose a different path from basketball,. He pitches for the Delta baseball team and is committed to Taylor University for baseball.
Intramural championships start Saturday (Feb. 22). For Lincoln, it will hopefully be the first of many championships. But for Zane and Nathan, they hope to end with a common affair, a championship.
