In an attempt to make games fair, many recreational organizations-- including the intramural sports teams organized at App State-- have actually taken a step backward in the game of equality. The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) has recently passed several rules to "even the playing field." These rules include a soccer scoring alteration, where a goal scored by a woman is worth two points, while one scored by a man is worth only one.

This isn't helping even the playing field. This is telling women that simply because of their gender, national associations (and all the colleges who are members of this organization) assume they're not as good at sports, and therefore need all the help they can get.

A year or so back, I tried my hand at being a soccer referee. I reffed the intramural indoor soccer tournament here at App, and I definitely saw some crazy things, from fights to injuries to wacky jerseys. But one thing that astounded me always was how, because of the many new rules instated to make soccer "more equal", women were actually being treated worse on the court. Because a girl's goal was worth more, a team would often have a woman simply sit and wait by the goal so that they could pass to her and have her score. These women may well have been great players that joined for the opportunity to play, but they saw little to no action glued to the goal.

I also saw loads of teams stacked by women who could have cared less about soccer, simply to meet the required number of females that had to be standing on the court. These girls jogged back and forth and hardly put in any effort, and I don't blame them. They had to be there to give their friends a chance to join the tournament. Consequently, fewer men that actually wanted to play were allowed to play. These teams were also eliminated early on because, with less experienced members, they simply weren't competitive.

These crazy rules aren't limited to colleges, either. Watauga County Parks and Recreation has its' own co-ed softball league, complete with odd rules. Some may have made some sense, such as the rule on what type of bats men could use versus women. If the men had hit with the composite bats instead of just the single-walled ones, the balls would have been faster and more dangerous, and we would have seen many more out-of-the-park hits.

Some of the other rules were absurd. For every man that was walked, a woman was walked as well. I, for one, was upset every time I was forced to give up my opportunity to bat because of some rule. I think I stand for a lot of competitive and competent girls when I say, don't try and make things easy on us- and definitely don't underestimate us.