Intramural sports rev up as semester gets underway

Aiden Zhou

1:22 am, Sep 12, 2024

Ava Seymour, Contributing Photographer

Dust off your cleats and prepare your spikeball skills: intramural sports began on Sept. 9. 

A historic piece of the rivalry between Yale’s 14 residential colleges, intramurals take place in three different seasons. Outdoor events this fall include cornhole, flag football, soccer and spikeball, while pickleball and table tennis matches will be held inside the Payne Whitney Gymnasium. 

These sports are more than just an opportunity to get active on campus. Intramurals enable students to form stronger relationships with members of their college in a shared quest to bring the Tyng Cup, the first-place prize for the intramural competitions, home.

Maria Storch ’28, who intends to participate in soccer and spikeball, is excited about the prospect of engaging with her fellow Piersonites on the field. 

“It seems really fun to be teammates with people in my residential college and find community around sports,” Storch told the News.

The unifying power of intramurals is echoed by student organizers. 

Natalie Haase ’27, the Head IM Secretary this year, said a key role of her job is being at the forefront of operations: composing schedules, reserving facilities and settling rule disputes. 

In an email to the News, Haase conveyed her excitement about working with other IM secretaries to facilitate an easy, welcoming environment between colleges. 

“When playoffs begin,” she wrote, “there is a fun, competitive atmosphere that I think really brings individual teams together as they are shooting for the same goal.” 

Playoffs, the formats of which vary for each sport, are an opportunity for teams to earn extra points in addition to those won from regular season games. Scoring is also dependent on sport, with those that involve more players offering a higher bounty. 

Both Haase and Ben Xu ’26 emphasized that intramurals provide a unique chance to meet friends of other years, contrasting with the dynamic of many other classes and activities.

 “I think the closest friends I’ve made in other years in my college were through intramurals,” Xu said. 

Xu is one of many student organizers for whom involvement in the IM system stemmed simply from having had a good time. Amid a stressful start to the year, intramural sports present a chill, low-pressure way to get involved and find people, he explained.

It’s not all fun and games, though. Xu, now the IM Secretary for Benjamin Franklin College, has high hopes for this upcoming season. 

“We were definitely in contention for a lot of the school year,” Xu explained about Franklin’s previous IM performance. Now, he aims to mend this chip on Franklin’s shoulder as the college prepares to seek their first-ever Tyng Cup. 

The other newer residential college, Pauli Murray, has dominated the intramural scene over the past three years. Benton Hayes ’27, current IM Secretary for the college, highlights the culture of support and enthusiasm that empowers them. 

“It’s like we have our own cheer team,” Hayes wrote. His goal this year is to win a fourth Tyng Cup. “We’ve got a lot to live up to, but I think we could do it.”

Complete schedules for intramural sports can be found on the Yale Campus Recreation website.