Carmel dads club and CHS both run intramural to offer a chance for athletes who are interested in playing a sport to be able to compete with others but in different ways. Dads Club is an organization that lets athletes of all ages who live in the Carmel Clay township to compete with one another, while intramural is just for CHS students. According to Dads club commissioner Duane Hostetler, the main purpose of Dads club is to help prepare students for CHS sports teams. On the other hand, CHS intramural director Mike Meyer said the focus of intramurals has mainly been on basketball ever since it started and  to let students participate in a sport they otherwise would not be able to since the sports division at CHS is very competitive at the varsity level with skill and overall population of the school.

Hostetler said one of the biggest difference between the two clubs is that intramural is more student-run. Intramural participants get to pick their own teammates and in Dads Club the coaches and commissioners are in charge of that. Meyer said each intramural team coaches itself, whereas Dads club has a more organized system and has a broader set of rules.

Jacob “Jake” Waples, Dads Club member and senior, said, “I love my teammates. For the most part you don’t always know who is going to be on your team. Fortunately, I got the other seniors I requested and we got put with a great group of juniors who all know each other very well, and we all get along great.”

Caleb Shaffer, intramural member and sophomore, said, “We get to choose our teams, and we’re all really good friends. A couple of us have played with each other before so we knew each other’s playing styles. That makes it a lot easier to play recreationally rather than competitively. There’s nothing wrong with playing with a random team. It forces you to adapt to your teammates, but when picking your own team, you’re familiar with them, and it just makes things a lot more fun playing together.”

Hostetler said the Dads Club nine-week season consists of one practice a week and a game on Saturday. Although Dads Club is a nonprofit organization, members still have to pay a fee which goes into renting venues, hiring referees and providing a sponsored shirt. Likewise, Meyer said intramural teams have to pay $75 for referees during the playoff season and shirts. He said the teams have to referee for themselves until playoffs start, but there have not been many conflicts occurring from it.

He said Dads Club has teams that compete at the same level with one another and at the end of the year they have a gold and silver tournament between the two different competitive levels. Teams do not need to be made up of any specific grade level and are players are chosen by the team captain.

According to Hostetler, there are some people who join basketball just for fun. He said it would not matter to those players which team they are put on or if they win the championship. Their main purpose is just to have fun. He said the Dads Club tries to make playing any sport for them as fun as possible but also with a competitive aspect for those who do want to compete to have a chance to win the tournament. 

Waples said, “All the games are competitive and, for me, competition is the fun part of Dads Club. I don’t like to play basketball and just mess around when I play. I want everyone’s best shot. Just goofing around every once in a while is great, but at least for me, I’d much rather go play in a competitive game than a game where we are just there to mess around.”

Shaffer said, “With Dads Club, you do have practices. It’s a formality; (Dads Club athletes) take it a little more seriously than (intramural) do since it’s an organized sports club. But with intramural, you don’t have that pressure, and you don’t have to have that much of a time commitment. Usually after football, I try to stray away from school sports, since they’re so time consuming, but I still want to stay active, so this was the way to do it.”

According to Meyer, another difference between Dads club and intramural is Dads club has separate teams for both genders but intramural is coed. He said this year intramural has around four to five teams that are mainly girl-dominated. He said if there is an all girls team playing an all boys team, the girls have the choice of doubling their points. Hostetler said there is not a rule separating the two genders, they just do not have anyone of the opposite gender playing on the other gender’s team. However it will not create problems if it happens.

Meyer said, “Being part of an organized club for a sport helps create a good combo of both fun and competitiveness. Enjoy these years as you can ‘cause when you grow older you can’t just go to your wife and say ‘Hey, I’m going to a basketball practice’ because you have too much responsibility.”