Intramural Rules & Resources

Intramural Sports Handbook and Guidelines

How to sign up for an Intramural event

1. 1. Look for information about upcoming intramural sports on
   FitRec Connect 
   FitRec Website
   MyBelmont
   FitRec Instagram account
   Beaman Information Desk
   Residence Halls
2. Sign up for intramurals via FitRecConnect.belmont.edu
   a. For more information about how to sign up visit our How to Sign Up page
   b. If you have any questions in regards to this feature or if you having trouble registering, please call the Intramural Graduate Assistant at 615-460-8059 or email us at intramurals@belmont.edu

Statement of Risk

All intramural participants are strongly urged to be physically fit and in good health when
participating in any intramural sports. Belmont University, the Beaman Center and their employees do not assume any responsibility for injuries or medical expenses sustained by individuals participating in any intramural program.

Eligibility

The intramural staff will check eligibility periodically throughout the semester.

• Full-Time Students: All full-time undergraduate students and graduate students are eligible to participate in all intramural sports/events.
• Full and Part-Time Faculty/Staff: All full and part-time faculty and staff are eligible to
  participate in all intramural sports.
• Professional Athletes: All current and former professional athletes are ineligible to participate in the sport or related sport that they played professionally. A professional athlete is defined as an individual that has signed a contract to play a sport and received compensation.
• Collegiate Athletes: All current collegiate athletes (any athlete that is currently on a Varsity sports roster or is practicing with that team) are ineligible to participate in the sport that they are playing or have played collegiately for one calendar year from their last contest. Players that participated collegiately in singles or dual sports are ineligible to participate in that sport. There is a limit of 2 current varsity athletes per intramural team.
• Club athletes will be limited to 2 per roster in similar sports (ie. Club Baseball & Intramural Wiffleball).

Men’s & Women’s Intramural Sports

You must be a full-time undergraduate student, a full-time graduate student, or full or part-time
employees of Belmont University to participate in the intramural sports program. Men may only play in men’s leagues and women may only play in women’s leagues. If there is not a sport available for men or women to play in, they may play in the opposite gender’s sport if it is acceptable to all participants, or if special permission has been granted by Intramural Sports.

CoRec Intramural Sports

CoRec events are open to all full and part-time faculty, staff, and full-time students and are governed by the same sportsmanship rules and regulations of other intramural sports. In all CoRec sports the ratio of guy to girl must be as even as possible to permit play. (ie. 2:2, 2:3, 1:2, etc). Reference sport specific rules and guidelines for any questions.

Free Agents

Free agents are individuals that are not members of a team but would like to join one. If you need
help joining a team please contact the Intramural Graduate Assistant at intramurals@belmont.edu 

Recognized Organizations

All members of Greek organizations and other officially recognized groups must be in good standing with the Division of Student Affairs and Student Activities and Organizations. Intramural Sports will utilize official organization rosters filed with the SAO office and it is up to each individual organization to ensure that only registered members are participating in intramural teams.

Participant Responsibilities

The Department of Fitness and Recreation supports and enforces Belmont’s Community
Commitments, as well as all policies and expectations found in the Bruin Guide. Any behavior or
action that is not in consonance with the University's mission or violates principles, policies or
statements within the Commitments or Bruin Guide, will be handled in an appropriate manner.
If necessary, individuals may be reported to the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity for further action.

Sportsmanship

At the conclusion of each contest the Intramural Staff will assign a grade to each team
that participated. Sportsmanship will be rated on a scale of 4-0 and at the end of the regular season will be averaged to create the team’s sportsmanship “GPA.” Forfeits will result in a “0” for the team sportsmanship and may be associated with a forfeit fee. Defaults will result in a “4” for sportsmanship and there will be no fee. To qualify for playoffs, teams must have any average of 3.0 sportsmanship or above. In order to advance in playoffs, a team must score 3.0 or above each game or lose their spot in the tournament.

Conduct Toward Intramural Staff

Any participant, coach or fan that shoves, pushes, bumps, brushes, punches, spits,
throws equipment or verbally attacks an intramural staff member or official in any manner
will automatically be suspended from all intramural programs for the remainder of their
academic and/or professional career or from any alumni events at Belmont University. If
necessary, further disciplinary actions may be pursued and participant(s) may be referred to the
Director of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity.

Ejections

Any person that is ejected from an intramural contest is to leave the field/court and
entire recreational facility immediately or risk further disciplinary actions. If participant(s) does
not leave immediately, they will jeopardize his or her teams/organization’s game status. Any participant(s) ejected from an intramural contest will be ineligible for any future competition, until they meet with the Director of Fitness and Recreation. If necessary, the director will make a ruling on the length of the suspension which will not begin until after the suspended person has met with the Director.

Fighting

Any and all types of illegal physical contact, illegal spitting, illegal verbal attacks or other combative actions involving fans, players, coaches, captains, teammates and intramural staff members will suspend that participant(s) from all intramural events for the rest of his or her academic or professional career and from any alumni events at Belmont University. If necessary, further disciplinary actions may be pursued and participant(s) may be referred to the Director of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity.

Teams Leaving the Bench Area

Any team/organization or player that leaves the bench/sideline area during an intramural contest to engage in an altercation for any reason will be suspended for a mandatory minimum of one game. Leaving the bench area will also cause the team(s) to forfeit the contest, be put on probation and possibly suspended from play for the remainder of the semester, depending on the nature of the circumstances.

Director’s Rule

The director reserves the right to put into effect any new ruling pertaining to intramural sports and unsportsmanlike behavior and fair play and the safety of all participants. The assistant director can also take any individual and their actions to the Belmont University Student Disciplinary Committee for review.

Equipment Damage

Any damages to equipment, fields or the fitness center that have not occurred within the framework of the intramural event will be charged to the offending participant(s). He or she will be financially responsible for any and all deliberate or negligent destruction to the BSLC, fields or equipment.

Belmont University ID

All Intramural participants MUST have a current and valid Belmont University Identification Card. If a participant’s BUID card is not legible (photo or name) or does not have a student ID number that corresponds with his or her team’s roster that participant must have a form of photo identification in order to be allowed to participate. Proper identification is needed to be shown at all games and if you do not have the proper identification, you will not be allowed to participate until you obtain the proper identification. If you use an improper identification card, you will be suspended from all intramurals for one year.

Team Captain’s Responsibility

Every team/organization must have a representative (Captain) who will be responsible for informing the team of Belmont University policies, procedures and game rules. All information can be found via www.belmont.edu/FitRec under “Intramurals & Clubs” tab and the associated Fall or Spring semester. Responsibilities include:

• Captains must serve as the primary point of contact for their team if the intramural office needs information regarding teams and scheduling preferences.
• Captains should inform the Intramural Office of any injuries that occurred during an intramural contest.
• Captains must be familiar with all rules and regulations, eligibility standards, deadlines, scheduling times, dates, sites and opponents.
• Prior to creating a team, captains (and players) will be prompted to take a quiz based on the policies and rules of the sport.
• Captains are responsible for the conduct of his or her team’s players and fans before, during, and after all intramural contests.

Roster Add/Drop

Teams may add/drop players before every regular season game. Before playoffs commence, a team must finalize their roster and can no longer add/drop players. In order to be eligible for the playoffs, a player must be checked into at least 1 regular season game with that team. Players are only allowed to play on one single gender team per league (i.e. 1 CoRec & 1 Men’s or 1 CoRec & 1 Women’s). Intramural Sports reserves the right to deny any add/drop request if this rule is being misused.

Defaults

A team is allowed one default per event (unless it is a single elimination tournament or a single elimination playoff). A default is used when a team/organization is unable to field a team that is scheduled to play a game and will not count as a forfeit nor cost the team their forfeit fee. It will count as a loss in the standings. For example, if a team is two players short of the minimum required to field a team in a particular sport, rather than forfeit the game they may choose to use their one alloted default. Team captains must default their game on Fusion IM by 12PM gameday. If the default occurs after 12PM the default will be considered a forfeit and the forfeit fee will be assessed to the captain.

Forfeit

A forfeit is when a team does not show up for a scheduled contest without defaulting. Forfeits will result in loss, zero sportsmanship and forfeit fee assessed to the captain.  

Forfeit Fee

If a team forfeits a game, the captain of that team will be responsible for paying the forfeit fee. If the forfeit fee has not been paid by the next contest the captain will be unable to play or registered for another sport until the fee is paid. Forfeit fees are variable based on the event and the amount of staff required to manage each contest but will be a minimum of $10 and can be paid at the Beaman Information Desk. 

10 Minute Grace Period

If at least one member of a team is checked in by game time, this team is allowed a 10 minute grace period. At the end of the 10 minutes, if the team does not have the required number of players to start, the contest will be considered a forfeit. If the team checks in the required number of players within the 10 minute grace period, the opposing team will be awarded points and the game clock will begin based on the time it took for the team to arrive. (Points awarded vary per sport, please see sport rules for specifics). For example, if a team is ready at 5 minutes, the opposing team will be awarded 5 points and the game clock will have begin 5 minutes into the contest.

Protests

A captain may submit a protest within 24 hours of an event if a rule was enforced incorrectly and
affected the outcome of the competition. All protests that do not meet the deadline (the day after the protest event) and are not typed will not be reviewed.
There are two types of protests listed below:

• Game Protests: Teams cannot protest a “judgment” call of an official (ex. block/charge call in basketball is a judgment made by an official) only a specific rule enforcement (ex. if a flag guard was enforced as a 5yrd penalty instead of 10yrds). All decisions are final.
• Eligibility Protests: Teams may only protest a player’s eligibility. Game specific disagreements will be settled on the field/court by the captains and the intramural
  staff during a stoppage of play.
  

Tie Breakers

In the case of a tie situation regarding playoffs, etc., the following are the procedures that will
be used to determine which team advances or wins a contest:

1. Sportsmanship Rating
2. Number of Forfeits or Defaults
3. Winning percentage
4. Points for and against +/-
5. Head to head competition
6. Common opponents
7. Playoff game