In a year marked with uncertainty and change due to the COVID-19 pandemic, post-secondary schools across the country have faced unprecedented challenges. For open campuses like Acadia, student health and wellness have been a top priority to ensure that students are able to attend classes and access campus in person in an environment that is clean, safe, and meets all Public Health requirements. Essential to student health and wellness is access to opportunities for physical wellness and a challenge has been how to offer sport, fitness, and recreational opportunities to students in a COVID-19 altered setting.
Supported by the Acadia Alumni Association and Acadia's Department of Student Life, the Department of Athletics mobilized to offer an enhanced experience to Acadia students. As one of the pillars of the Alternate Sport Model, this year's student sport and recreation program offered a range of COVID-19 altered sport and recreational activities, including basketball, volleyball, soccer, flag Football, dodgeball, kickball, handball, Spikeball, yoga, field hockey, lacrosse, rugby, ultimate frisbee and women's hockey.
Leading the intramural portion of the Alternate Sport Model has been basketball assistant coach, Danny De Palma and recent Acadia School of Kinesiology graduate, now alumna, Mckaylie Campbell. De Palma and Campbell organized 10 weeks of programming in the fall semester and over 560 students participated in the various leagues and events that were offered. "We were confident with the Acadia Athletic Complex's phased plan on campus that there would be a safe environment for students to be active, but also follow proper protocols. We just needed them to register to the events, and fortunately we saw great participation, the students seemed to be really excited about getting out to play each night," said De Palma.
In addition to more structured leagues and events, the Alt-Sport model also offered a wide-range of "drop-in" recreational times on the fields, gymnasium, and arena. All combined, over 350 hours of sport and recreational programming were offered to Acadia students within the Athletics Complex in the fall semester.
Said Campbell, "With all the challenges and changes due to COVID-19 this year, being able to provide consistent and fun forms of physical activity, social interaction, and competition was a big positive for Acadia students. Seeing the enthusiasm and excitement from students showing up each and every week to participate was so encouraging and motivated us to continue to think of new and different offerings suitable and safe for a COVID-19 restricted environment. We're looking forward to continuing to build on that success in the winter semester."
With the winter months giving less access to outdoor activities, the team is aiming to offer more indoor sports to the Acadia student body including indoor soccer and hockey.
"We are hoping to provide leagues for other sports such as hockey, indoor soccer, while improving upon the competitive environment established in basketball and volleyball. There is also hope for more yoga and fitness opportunities as well," added De Palma.
Acadia Athletics would like to thank the Acadia Alumni Association, as well as the Department of Student Life for their continued support of this initiative. Acadia's Alt-Sport Model continues in the winter semester with programming starting January 18th, 2021. Regular schedules and registration details are posted weekly to the website http://intramurals.acadiau.ca and on social media (@acadia_intramurals on Instagram and @acadiaintra on Twitter). Contact intramurals@acadiau.ca for more information.