College and professional football are officially underway — but so is intramural flag football. Residence halls, greek houses and independent students and faculty members have set out to win the flag football championship.

There are 234 teams signed up for flag football this year. There are no nationally televised games, postgame media interviews or thousands of fans cheering at the Southeast Recreation Field Complex. However, love for the game and friendly competition have captured the hearts of hundreds of intramural flag football players alike.

During the 2002 Cyclone football season, Matt Stephenson was playing linebacker for Iowa State, but then he discovered how important it was to make the grade.

Stephenson is playing intramurals this year because juggling Cyclone football and keeping his GPA high presented a challenge.

Stephenson, sophomore in pre-business, said walking on the ISU team was a dream. Many players welcomed him — but his academic success experienced a dramatic decline.

“It was a 6 o’clock in the morning to however long you wanted to study at night, which probably goes to 11 or 12 o’clock at night, commitment,” Stephenson said. “A lot of times, you don’t have enough time to study.”

After feeling the pressure from early morning weightlifting, late practices and schoolwork, Stephenson’s grades dropped.

“At that time, my academics were not doing so well,” he said.

Stephenson said he understood that playing sports at the collegiate level would be a strain on his academic achievement.

“Since academics was my main point, I decided to quit the team for that reason,” Stephenson said.

He left the team after a game against Nebraska. He had the itch, the fire, the passion for the game, but didn’t realize that playing for Iowa State would be so demanding. He said he didn’t know what to expect.

“It was one of those things where you wouldn’t know until you tried it,” he said. “I didn’t want to say what if; I didn’t want to be a person that said I didn’t try.”

Stephenson is now engaging in a less demanding sport, intramural flag football. He and 11 friends have formed a team.

Intramurals are all about having a good time, and they give him a short break from studying, Stephenson said.

“You can go with your friends, and it relieves some stress,” he said. “It’s like getting back to the roots of playing football where you’re just having fun. It’s not as competitive as playing for the school.”

Stephenson is also working to improve his GPA, now a 2.5.

Intramural teammate Colin Gorsuch, junior in architecture, said he and Stephenson play intramural sports for the same reason.

“It’s a relief from studies,” Gorsuch said. “Something to do with my boys.”

This is the third year Stephenson and Gorsuch’s team has competed in intramural football, and they’ve made it to the semifinals for the past two years.

“We’re too good to practice,” Gorsuch said. “As the games get more competitive, we’ll begin to have regular practices.”

For now, it’s just go out and play, Stephenson said.

The team usually has about eight or 10 fans that come to support them at its games. After football season ends, it will be moving on to the next wave of intramurals.

“We plan on playing intramural volleyball, basketball and hockey,” Stephenson said. “It’s so much fun.”