Campus Recreation's Intramural Sports is planning a free kickball event sponsored by Victoria's Secret PINK. Originally scheduled for Feb. 12, the event was postponed and a new date has yet to be released.
"It's not really a tournament," said Jessica Large, special events marketing coordinator for Campus Recreation. "It's more of just a laidback, casual event, where they'll come, kick a ball and learn about it. Once they get there, we'll put them in teams, they'll play and then Victoria's Secret will be handing out giveaways."
Victoria's Secret will provide food and water for the all kickball players, but they're also bringing various PINK prizes for some lucky participants.
"We're bringing freebees," said Nikki Little, Victoria's Secret PINK campus rep and a sophomore in agricultural economics. "We're bringing [PINK] water bottles for the first 20-25 people who show up. We're also bringing yoga [packages] for raffles. We'll hand out about six or seven depending on supplies.
"[We'll have] water bottles for when people get hot, Nutri-Grain bars, little healthy snacks and some little candies."
The purpose of this event is to promote female participation in intramural sports.
"This is something we're looking forward to because we have a lot of male participation in intramurals," said Nick Head, student coordinator for intramural sports. "We have a pretty decent amount of female participation. There was an SEC poll, and we're one of the leading universities with female participation, but we can always draw more."
Campus Recreation said they chose kickball because it's an easy sport to pick up on, even without extensive experience in sports.
"Kickball does not require you to be athletic," Large said. "It is more or less a fun sport that everyone can participate in."
They also decided on the sport because they saw a demand for it among students.
"We took a survey on sports that students would love to have, and the number one sport they wanted added was kickball," Head said. "We listen to them."
If the event goes well, Campus Recreation members hope to start an intramural kickball league.
"We want to get participation, and that's a good indicator of what we can do in the future," Head said.
They might even be able to implement the league this semester, but first they must test weekend turnout with the Sunday event.
"Once we come back form spring break, we go into softball season, and those fields will be taken up Monday through Thursday," Head said. "If we have room on the weekends, we'll organize a small league, so kids can get out and play.
"But we want to make sure we can offer it correctly. We really want to offer them a variety of times. We're going to see how many we get this Sunday to see if it would work on a Sunday or would be better on a weekday."
Campus Recreation welcomes all students to the event, whether they're advocates of the addition of the league or just looking for an activity to fill their Sunday afternoon.
"Anybody and everybody that wants to participate can show up the day of at 2 p.m. and get registered," Head said. "This is one of those things where you're welcome to come, even if you haven't signed up, and get some free stuff, have some fun and just enjoy yourself."
To register before the event visit the Victoria's Secret PINK at Auburn University facebook group.
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