Fall intramural athletics began last week, and it promises to be a season filled with competitive fun and pride for the residential college.
Aiden Zhou September 12, 2024 1:22 AM
Ava Seymour, contributing photographer
Get your cleats on and get your Spikeball skills ready: Intramural sports kick off on September 9th.
One of the historic rivalries between Yale’s 14 residential colleges, the intramural competition takes place in three different seasons. This fall, outdoor events include cornhole, flag football, soccer and spikeball, with pickleball and table tennis matches taking place in Payne Whitney Gymnasium.
These sports are more than just an opportunity to be active on campus; intramural competitions allow students to build stronger relationships with members of their college with the common goal of bringing home the Tyng Cup, the intramural competition’s grand prize.
Maria Storch, 28, who will be participating in soccer and Spikeball, is excited to be able to interact with her peers from Pearson on the field.
“It seems like it’s really fun to be teammates at a residential college and find community through sports,” Storch told the News.
The strong sense of unity among school clubs is also supported by student organizers.
Natalie Haas, 27, this year’s IM chief secretary, said a key part of her job is being on the front line of operations, creating schedules, reserving facilities and resolving rules disputes.
In an email to The News, Haas said he is excited to work with other IM executive directors to foster a casual and welcoming environment among the colleges.
“Once the playoffs begin, I think it will create a fun, competitive atmosphere and really bring the individual teams together with the same goal,” she wrote.
Playoff formats vary by sport, but teams have the opportunity to earn extra points on top of those they earned in regular season games. Scoring also varies by sport, and the more players involved, the higher the prize money.
Haas and Ben Shue (Class of ’26) emphasized that Intramural offers a unique opportunity to meet friends from other year levels, in contrast to the dynamics of many other classes and activities.
“I think the closest friends I made during college were through Intramural,” Xu says.
Xu is one of many student organizers who joined the IM system because they simply wanted to have fun. He explained that during a stressful start to the year, intramurals sports were a calmer, less-pressured way to get involved and find company.
But that’s not all But it’s a fun game, and Xu, now the IM executive director at Benjamin Franklin University, has high hopes for this season.
“We were definitely the favorites all school year,” Xu explained of Franklin’s previous IM results. Xu aims to put an end to this frustration for Franklin as the school prepares to win its first Tyng Cup.
Another new residential college, Pauli Murray, has been dominating the intramural scene for the past three years, and the college’s current IM Executive Director, Benton Hayes (Class of ’27), highlights the culture of support and enthusiasm that empowers them.
“It’s like we have our own cheering squad,” Hayes wrote. His goal this year is to win his fourth Tin Cup. “We still have a lot of work to do, but I think we can do it.”
A complete schedule of intramural sports can be found on the Yale Campus Recreation website.