Women's Participation?

Participation in Flickerball was surprisingly restricted to men. At the time Trinity intramurals offered both women's leagues and co-rec leagues for many sports including (but not limited to) basketball, football, and tennis. These sports were popular, and some would argue more popular than Flickerball.

This is not the case though. Yes, in the infancy of Flickerball, there was little interest. But, as The Mirage from 1981 states, that season had recorded the most participation in IMs at that point. So why was there never a push for women to be included in Flickerball? Dr. Brown, when pressed on the issue, recalled that he did think that it was weird that there was no women’s or even co-recreational league offered for Flickerball. He just chalked it up to women not wanting to play the sport and having little interest in it. Even though this may be the case, Trinity is such a progressive campus that there should have been some sort of women’s participation regardless.

The argument that women should not play Flickerball because of the off chance that they could be injured is also a weak argument. As seen in the Flickerball history page, the sport was created as a counter to traditional Fotball (and even flag football) to curb injuries. The chance was still present though. Dan Monson, a Trinity and O-Phi alumni recalled times when there were Flickerball games where there were injuries because of Hockey-like checking an there were times where people even went to the hospital for injuries sustained in Flickerball games. The fact that there was no female participation in Flickerball is sad, but if the sport is ever brought back to Trinity, there would definitely have to be some sort of participation that was sought after by not njust the student body, but the Recreational Sports department as well.