Albany Student Press 1967-03-14

Although the basketball and wrestling squads finished their schedules on a sour note, congratulations are still in order for coaches Sauers and Garcia in guiding and molding their respective personnel into consistent winners throughout the campaign. The 1966 67 winter sports season was one of the most successful mat this University has. had in quite a long time, and we only hope that next year's will be as rewarding. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of this year's A MIA program. Space limits us from expounding fully on many of the old and new problems that the officials of the intramural program incurred this winter, so what we will do here is discuss briefly and bring to the forefront some of these major difficulties which have arisen this year, especially during the basketball season. It seems that in developing the basketball intramural program there has been a lack of visualization of the problems by those in charge. The facilities and the staff have not expanded in ratio with the student participation, thus a problem of communication has created unnecessary difficulties. Those presently in charge of AMIA have done an excellent job to the extent that time has allowed them; however, their time has been severely limited for they have had seemingly many other and important commitments besides that of our intramural athletics. This problem became increasingly evident as the basketball season progressed through its early stages. This year, 47 teams participated in the four AMIA basketball leagues, and this was simply too much for one Commissioner and a part time AMIA director to handle. Consequently, most of the difficulties which have come about have often been resolved only when the answer was too late. When asked to comment on the problems that occurred during the course of the AMIA basketball season, Commissioner Tony Cavilere had this to say: "The league as a whole has functioned much smoother than in previous years, but ,we, however, have not reached the maximum of efficiency, thus many students are being deprived of the right to participate fully and reap the benefits that can be offered." We feel that only when we do get a full-time AMIA director and a full-size gym that will be available all the time and which will provide accommodations for as many students as are willing to participate, will we ever attain this "maximum of efficiency."