How To Win At IM Sports
The weather is warming, spring is in the air and’tis the season for ultra-competitive intramural sports. I know what you’re thinking, “Parker, c’mon! IM sports aren’t competitive at all!” Well, you’re bloody well wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Your IM team should be so ruthlessly efficient, well-organized and brutal that it could goose-step all over Poland on a whim. IM sports are no joke, folks, and the way you people are treating them is a true disgrace to us all. Without further ado, here is everything you need to know about how to assemble your dream IM squad.
1. Build up a minor league division
This one is really a no-brainer, guys. You’ve just got to recruit players straight out of high school and have them begin training in your Single-A team, based out of Bunker Hill Community College. After that, your best Single-A players can advanced to the Double-A team at the University of New Hampshire, and, finally, the very cream of the crop can move up to the Triple-A team at Colby-Sawyer College. After that, it’ll be time for your ultra-elite, highly trained athletes to come up to the big leagues: the Dartmouth College Intramural Tennis competition.
2. Make heavy use of performance-enhancing drugs
Just ask Lance Armstrong! There’s a reason he’s not called Lance Armweak, and that reason is simple: LOTS AND LOTS OF STEROIDS. You have to take a page out of his book when building your team. Sure, steroids are expensive. Yes, some may say that it’s just a tad ridiculous to be bulking up the scrawny kids in your residence hall with enough steroids to warrant a DEA investigation, but that’s temporary, and glory is forever.
3. Bring in ringers
You’ve got an intramural tennis tournament coming up? That’s funny, so does Novak Djokovic, cause you’re paying him $5 million in unmarked bearer bonds to sub in for one of your weaker players. While he’s in Hanover, Djokovic will be known as “Stevie McGrady,” a ’17 from Washington State who, inexplicably, has a Serbian accent.
4. Cut the losers who aren’t up to par
If your player isn’t practicing at least 14 hours per day or isn’t performing like a pro then he can packs his bags, because there’s no room for mediocrity in intramural sports.
5. Fundraise illegally
Some would say that you shouldn’t go any further than just illegally soliciting donations from alumni boosters, but, frankly, that’s weak. It’s very weak. Instead, set up two teams of the most cutthroat econ majors you know. One team can set up a brutal gambling ring in Russell Sage. The profit margins will be off the charts and you can eliminate overhead and reinvest in an illegal international arms trading scheme instead. The second team should set up an elaborate Ponzi scheme on Wall Street that makes Bernie Madoff look like an amateur. If your IM team doesn’t have enough money to fill Baker-Berry with cash from top to bottom, you’re doing it wrong.
6. Hire Bill Belichick to coach your team
Sorry, residents of Seattle: there’s just no easy way to break it to you, but the Pats are where it’s at. Belichick is the most successful football coaches of the modern era, and it’s just silly to assume his genius on the gridiron couldn’t be translated to the tennis courts. Belichick can be bought away from the Patriots with just a few billion dollars, and, what with your totally-legal-and-not-at-all-shady money-making schemes, you absolutely have the cash.
7. Hire professional assassins to murder your opponents
This one is really pretty self-explanatory. Step 1: Go on Craigslist. Step 2: Find professional assassins. Step 3: Pay the assassins. Step 4: Feign ignorance when every member of your opposing IM teams is found dead under mysterious circumstances. To assure plausible deniability, order several of your own players knocked off, too. Step 5: Win.