My intramurals soccer season recently came to a close, and that is always disappointing. It is a lot of fun to keep on playing the sports I got enjoyed so much in grade school and high school. Intramurals offer the rare opportunity to keep on playing the sports we love in an organized fashion. The intramurals program at UD is great, and the new Web site at imleagues.com seems to be working out quite well.

That being said, there are some issues that really should be ironed out in some of the sports. Namely, some of the rules. For anyone who has ever played intramurals or read the rulebooks for these sports, you know what I am talking about. Things can get pretty ridiculous. Here are some of my least favorites.

In flag football, the rules are pretty standard, but they can really get crazy if you look into them. For instance, did you know that it is legal to cross the line of scrimmage, cross back over onto the side you started, and then throw a legal forward pass? Yeah, it's true. A quarterback, or any other player on the team for that matter, can take the ball, run five yards downfield, turn around, lateral the ball to a player on his team behind the line of scrimmage, and that player may then throw a forward pass to another teammate who is now streaking down the sidelines all alone because everyone on defense thought the play was a run. How foolish of the defense to assume that once the quarterback had started running forward, he wasn't planning on running at all.

This rule is absurd. For one thing, it makes it impossible on a defender to have any idea what is going on. For another, it goes against everything any football fan has learned from watching or playing for the first 18 years of his life. It's tough to reverse 18 years of experience over the course of a six week season. So offenses, use the play I just described above, and you'll have great success. Just don't trust any instincts you might have on defense, they don't apply here.

Next let's examine a rule from intramurals soccer. This one is not as ridiculous sounding at first, but I just can't really see any reason for it. The rule is that there are no throw-ins. Normally in soccer, when the ball goes out of bounds, one team is awarded the ball and they throw the ball in to restart play. For whatever reason, UD intramurals decided a throw-in was a bad idea. Instead, they chose to have a team kick the ball in when it goes out of bounds. I guess I just don't understand why a kick-in is better. Throw-ins are not especially difficult to execute, and kick-ins are actually easier on the offense. They are just like a free kick, which is awarded when the opposing team commits a foul. It doesn't make any sense to have out of bounds be the same as a free kick. Maybe if out of bounds is going to equal to a free kick, free kick should be equal to a penalty kick.

Next in line is a pretty dreadful rule in coed basketball. In every intramurals sport there is a slightly different set of rules which force the girls to get involved or restrict the males. This is done in an effort to make the games more even for every player, and I support the idea. However, this rule just takes it too far. In coed basketball, the guys can never enter the lane. Ever. The rules state specifically not even to get a rebound or pick up a loose ball. A boy simply cannot touch the ball in the lane. Now, the rule is good at heart, but it goes too far. It makes sense to keep the ball away from boys when they are in the lane, ready to back a girl down. However, in following this rule, is a guy just supposed to let a ball roll through the lane and out of bounds because he cannot touch it? Or is he supposed to allow a girl free access to the hoop because he is the only one back on defense and he cannot contest for the ball? Seems like another rule that teams could easily exploit.

For my personal favorite terrible rule, I will take you back to the football field. This one is so absurd, I am not even going to try and explain it. We need to go straight to the literature, and check out spot passes. The intramurals football rules say this: "A player who catches any punt in the air may pass the ball forward, provided that the player does not take more than two steps after they make the catch." Wait a second. What? That can't be right, let me read this again. Holy crap, I did read that correctly. They are actually allowing someone who catches a punt to throw a pass to one of his teammates. What in the world is the thought process behind that one? What could that possibly add to the game? Anybody who has any ideas or explanations on this rule, let me know, cause it's got me stumped.

The last rule that I hate is the one that comes last in every game it appears: the run rule, or mercy rule. Anybody who is getting involved in an intramurals sport is doing it because they enjoy the fun of playing. You aren't playing because you want to win-that is just a potential bonus of playing. No one is interested in a game ending early; they signed up to play, and the mercy rule is just cheating them from that opportunity. Anybody who signs up should get to play every minute of every game. If they are showing up, it is because they want to have some fun.

The Intramurals at UD are top notch, and have very little work to do. If I was on the staff though, I'd be bring these kinds of things up.