Happy week three! The colors of the leaves are rapidly changing, and to us that only means one thing: we’re getting closer to the Block 3 elimination stage of our fall IMs. That means that soon I won’t be able to console my volleyball team with the fact that it is pool play and we are “just warming up” after yet another devastating loss.
Anything can happen in the elimination round, but pool play performance determines the seeding for these double-elimination tournaments. On the flag football field, going into this week, there are a few teams that are holding strong with a 2-0 record. The quality of play has been improving from game to game and even the Theta team has been putting up some impressive plays. With a Theta team, a club soccer team and a women’s rugby team, this year has a higher-than-usual number of majority-female teams. We are going for 50-50 by 2030.
“We’ve played with just four players (all girls) on the field against a stacked team and come away with a win, but it can definitely be hard to compete with the men’s teams’ height advantages,” Lauren Voinovich ‘27, a player on the women’s rugby flag football team, told The Catalyst. “Still, we play fast and sometimes get lucky, though we have to remind ourselves often that this is a no contact IM.”
There are only two teams in outdoor soccer that have maintained a completely clean, no-loss record: Bunda Diggers and Ctrl alt Defeat. I’m tempted to flag the name “Ctrl alt Defeat” for AI, but maybe that would just be me being a sore loser, since our team, The Pookies, indeed started our season with a catastrophic loss to Ctrl alt Defeat. The Pookies have had some recent allegations (both internally and externally) of “playing hero ball.”
“I’m cheering for the Pookies,” said Director of Recreation Chris Starr, “but the Pookies play too selfishly.”
We’ll get back to our groove soon, but in the meantime maybe we can learn a little bit about team chemistry from an underclassmen team that’s been turning heads down on Olsen Field, not necessarily because of their on-field dominance but because of their unmissable style.
The Nukes, a team composed of all freshmen, show up to their games in all-out flair. New to the scene, this group of friends adopted this tradition as a way to break the ice and make the IM scene — brooding with ghoulish, bloodthirsty upperclassmen — less intimidating.
“It makes things seem less serious and maybe even helps us and the other team relax,” said Rylie Bowman ‘30. “Not that we don’t take our games seriously, we just want to be the ones who are winning at having the most fun, even if we aren’t winning the actual games.” The Nukes are currently 1-3 in soccer, but 4-0 in fun.
Costumes aren’t totally new to IM sports here. According to Chris Starr, who is essentially the holder of the ancient texts when it comes to IMs, there was a student who wore a dress to every game his team played, freshman through senior year. And not just any dress: the same dress. Every time.
In light of the dress story and alumni coming back this weekend, we were curious to hear more about memorable alumni. However, when we implored Chris Starr and Andy Obringer to tell us more stories from the Days of Yore, we were surprised to hear only negative stories: an IM hockey player who slammed another player onto the ice with his stick, a spectator with such a visible lack of decorum that threats were made to send pictures to his mom.
It begs the question: are only the miscreants truly remembered in this endless cycle of 4-year IM careers? It’s a concept perhaps not unique to IMs, one that was even examined by the great William Shakespeare: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often interred with their bones.” Obringer took the liberty of translating this doctrine to more modern terms: “you gotta be a s***head to be remembered.”
Finally, we must quickly recap the Block 2 Second Saturday installment, the hamster ball soccer tournament. It’s unclear if people were scared of getting hurt, busy getting ready for Drinks of the World or simply too hungover to fathom the idea of being inside a clear inflatable orb in 80-degree weather. The turnout for this tournament was not great. The teams that did attend, however, brought their A-game and perfectly demonstrated why we do IM flag football instead of tackle. A team of sophomore boys ended up bringing home the shirts after a hard fight against an enthusiastic team of freshmen.
See you next time.