There have been several additions to Iowa State’s already large intramural roster, and the new lineup of programs is playing to mixed reviews with students.

The new sports and game competitions added to the program include paintball, dodgeball, chess, checkers, College Football Bowl pick-em and a hot-shot contest. Disc golf has also been brought back after being last played about five years ago, and sand football has been moved from the summer schedule to fall semester.

To make room in the budget and on the schedule, co-ed flag football, co-ed basketball, water volleyball and inner-tube water basketball were dropped from the program.

Decisions to create new intramural sports were based on popularity and student input, said Garry Greenlee, associate director of intramural sports and facility operations.

“We’ve had under a dozen inquiries in to why we dropped sports, probably from people who played the sport before and wanted to play it again,” Greenlee said.

The department dropped co-ed basketball because of complaints about the rules, such as the rule that men can’t go in the lane. The rules were also confusing to some, Greenlee said.

Water volleyball and inner-tube water basketball had a large number of forfeits, which was the main reason for the termination of these two sports, Greenlee said. If one team didn’t show up, it would leave the pool open for 45 minutes without any play occurring, but the lifeguard and staff on duty still had to be paid while sitting idle.

“The savings in the cost of equipment and hourly wages from sports that are dropped go towards the equipment and hourly wages of the new sports,” Greenlee said.

Steven Pinkston, junior in marketing, is disappointed in the loss of inner-tube water basketball, which he has played since his freshman year.

“We were in the championship last year, and I would have enjoyed winning a T-shirt,” he said.

Pinkston said he plans to play checkers but doesn’t think the addition of new sports will make up for the ones that are no longer available because “they eliminated the two sports in the pool, and those were always pretty appealing.”

Paintball is one of the added sports that has been played already and has had a good reception. Matthew Nuetzman, senior in health and human performance, played on the first day of the tournament.

“It was great,” he said. “Everyone there loved it. The only thing that was bad is that my team lost.”

Nuetzman said that he thinks putting in paintball as a new sport was worth it, even though it came at the cost of eliminating other intramural sports.

“I know some people are upset, but I think if people would just play paintball, they’d see it as a good move,” he said.