Lawrence High has offered many extra-curricular activities in past, and some have even stuck as traditions. One of the most popular traditions is intramural basketball. It has proved itself to be a wildly popular activity with the students over the years.

Intramural basketball started about 30 years ago and has made itself into a much-anticipated part to the winter sports season for students.

Games consist of two 20 minute halves that don’t get stopped unless the score is close toward the last five minutes of the games, in which case, the clock stops for free throws.

It’s a short three-week season that starts with a pool play of 16 teams divided into four pools of four teams each. Each team plays all of the other teams in its pool. The winner of each pool advances to the tournament shortly after.

One friendly competitive addition to the tournament is a team that consists of only faculty members. Even the security guards get involved in the fun. The tournament then follows a single elimination rule that will end in two teams playing in the final game. This friendly competition has shown to be consistently filled up with excited students.

The teams are created by a student who fills out a form as the team captain. They must have a minimum of seven players on their teams. Junior Sam Stevens was a key player and team captain of his team, 50 Shades of Great in this year’s intramural basketball tournament.

“I want to win the tournament this year, and you can’t win the tournament if you don’t have a team to win the tournament with,” Stevens said.

The growing popularity can be credited to its stress-free, low-pressure and friendly competition. It has allowed students to play basketball with their friends in a competitive setting, but without the skills and commitment of high school basketball.

Sophomore Matt Ramaley was also a participant in this year’s intramural basketball tournament, but his season ended short due to his team’s early losses in pool play.

“I play basketball a lot, so this is a way for me to have fun and prove my skill,” Ramaley said. “Also for the top level college scouts.”

Coach Adam Green has headed the organization of the intramural basketball tournament for the past five years and has observed the students’ creative team collaboration.

“[Intramural basketball is popular because of] the camaraderie that they have,” Green said. “They can decide the team that they are on and the different uniform they can wear, so I think that’s why kids like it the most.”

A major part of intramural basketball’s popularity can be accredited to the freedom of things like team name, team outfits and the team players themselves.

Not only do the students have positive feelings toward intramural basketball, but also the staff enjoys participating in the popular activity.

“The feedback that I have gotten from it has been very positive, and I think that anything that can get the kids involved outside of school and give them something positive to do is good with the staff,” Green said.