Intramurals Offer Students a Competitive Outlet (and Football)

James Gwathney is a sports guy, who grew up in Summit, New Jersey, just outside of Newark. He played three sports in high school and went onto play football at Montclair State University.

“After I got out of eligibility football-wise, I was doing rugby for two years,” Gwathney said. “I had a roommate and he was playing. I said, ‘you’re crazy’. The next year I was out there playing. I worked at the Montclair YMCA. I changed jobs after five years and came down and worked for the state as a state inspector in the casinos. They downsized. They laid off about 30 of us. I was hired part-time here at Stockton and I’ve been here ever since.”

Gwathney, who has been in a fulltime role for more than 25 years, has been the perfect fit as the coordinator of intramurals and recreation at Stockton University where he says he’s worked since 1991. His twin daughters attended Stockton, and one even competed in intramurals.

“I was a physical education and health major in college,” he said. “It’s perfect. Everybody who knows me knows I have my shorts on every day.”

Stockton has a strong Intramural program, which operates under the auspices of the Intramural Recreation Council. Intramurals are recreational sports competitions played between teams or individuals and are organized within a particular institution, usually an educational institution. They differ from club sports, which are usually more specialized and have dedicated practice times and seasons that are normally longer than Intramural sports. 

Stockton has intramural teams in flag football, indoor soccer, basketball, softball, dodgeball, volleyball, outdoor soccer, softball and street hockey. Gwathney said thousands of Stockton students compete each year with dozens of teams competing in each of the sports offered. They may have 15 to 20 teams apiece for the various sports, so there are plenty of competitors.

“We service about 4,000 kids total yearly on a pretty regular basis,” he said. “We’re pretty busy.”

Flag football has been very popular and has done very well. Stockton doesn’t have a football team as part of its regular sports programs.

“Yeah, that’s our biggest,” Gwathney says. “I’m a football guy. Not to have football, flag football is my second-best thing to have. We started that and created a New Jersey Flag Football tournament down here. I wanted to get people down here to see what we’re about. We’ve got plenty of field. We probably have the second most to Rutgers in terms of land."

“For 12 years, we hosted it. We had a women’s division, a co-ed division and a men’s division. Every year, we went to the regional tournament at the University of Maryland. We’ve won there, I think four or five times. I wanted to do something to give the kids the opportunity to go off campus and see what it was like on other campuses.”

One of those “kids” that played intramurals at Stockton is Mario Laing, who now assists Gwathney with the intramurals and recreation. Laing, a 2014 Stockton graduate, loved intramural competition. He even won a regional title as part of a co-ed flag football team in 2014, playing on a team with Gwathney’s daughter, Jean.

Laing grew up in nearby Brigantine and said competing in intramurals was a wonderful experience.

“I guess the sports aspect in general, staying competitive while also focusing on school and it allowed me to maintain both,” said Laing, who also participated in basketball. “It also allowed me to go further than just the campus by participating in the extramural program, which is like the all-star team."

“We traveled to the University of Maryland, Boston University, Cornell University. We played in various tournaments over the years and won several championships so it allowed us to not only grow as a family on campus but also outreach to other places, because now we made a name for ourselves.”

“We took a lot of pride in that. Not only being a competitor and athlete, but we were a school that didn’t have a football team playing against other schools that did. We were usually the only D-III school at these tournaments. It was always an accomplishment.”

In 2014, that co-ed team that Laing was on won the 2014 National Intramural-Recreational Council (NIRSA) Regional Flag Football Tournament at the University of Maryland.  They qualified for the NIRSA National Flag Football Tournament at the University of West Florida. That same year, two teams of Stockton students competed in the Northeast Regional Dodgeball Tournament at Rowan University. Stockton competed in the men's and co-ed brackets, with the men's team winning the championship.

“I had the opportunity of having my daughter play with me,” Gwathney reflected. “That was very exciting. They won the first regional tournament, my daughter’s team. And also Mario, he helps me out and he was on that team also.”

The Stockton Intramural street hockey teams have won five regional crowns, the co-ed flag football teams have won four regional flag football titles, while the men’s basketball teams have won two regional titles. And many of the teams have won New Jersey state championships.

“We haven’t been successful yet (at the national tournament),” Gwathney said. “…I did coach for a while but it was just too much. We also created a New Jersey Basketball Tournament that we still host. Then we also go to University of Maryland for the regional basketball tournament.

 “…We’ve got a reputation, people know us. In the beginning, people would say ‘is that Stockton, California? Are you in Pomona, California?’ I’d say, ‘no, we’re in New Jersey.’ There’s a Pomona and Stockton in California and obviously the same thing in New Jersey. But now they know us because we’ve won and made some good relationships, definitely, with the people at the University of Maryland. 

 “We’ve done pretty well. We’ve been very proud of them to get Stockton on the map. And to be a relatively small school. You’ll have the University of Florida, Nebraska, Ohio State at the nationals and at the regionals you’ll have the same situation…What will happen is, you’ll have discussions and 20 years later you’ll be talking about intramural flag football instead of your history class that you had at Stockton…it’s been a passion of mine.”