Despite hours and hours of practice, I realized pretty quickly during my high school career that I was not going to play a sport in college. Early mornings and late night gym sessions didn’t pay off as my career average of 5 points-per-game (generously rounded up) over four years of high school basketball wasn’t getting me to the NBA—much less a college athletic program. While that inevitable truth loomed over me, I found solace in knowing that I could play intramural sports, meaning I would still get to enjoy the sports I loved while taking the competitive pressure off.
Since my first year, I’ve played seven different intramural sports at Whitman: tennis, basketball, sand volleyball, flag football, kickball, cornhole, and trivia. Some have been solo or in a duo but most have been a part of a team started by some of my friends my first year, named “Lumpy Ballz.” The team aspect of intramural sports is a huge part of the fun. Bonding over the highest of highs and the lowest of lows is one of the many things you’ll experience if you sign up to play recreational college sports. As a team, Lumpy Ballz has experienced it all, like playing sand volleyball during multiple different storms, last-second game winning touchdowns, and countless rescheduled basketball games. There’s nothing quite like a ragtag group of underdogs coming together, forming the inseparable bond of a team, and beating the odds to sometimes win an intramural sports game in our free time.
Speaking of winning, the best part of intramural sports may be the prize a victorious team receives at the end of the season, the famed blue shirt. The culmination of a season’s worth of blood, sweat, and tears, this blue shirt bears the title of champion, and is to be worn around campus as a symbol of your victory and sacrifice. I have two such champion shirts, one from winning an impromptu intramural trivia night at Reid and the other from winning the spring 2022 season of intramural kickball. I should have 3, however, as my friend and I did indeed win intramural cornhole, but the person running it graduated before all of the scores were counted, leaving us forever in a state having won yet having nothing to show for it. Even though it is cliché, intramural sports are ultimately just about having fun (boo!) and I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to have such a good time goofing off and playing some games with my friends.
Carsten Wallace-Bailey ’25 (He/Him/His) is a Psychology and Film and Media Studies double major and music minor from Walla Walla, Washington. Sometimes Carsten wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat remembering the time he scored on the wrong hoop in a middle school basketball game.
