For many students, joining a varsity or even a club sports team is too much of a commitment—or for some, simply too difficult of a physical feat. Intramural sports teams offer a less daunting and more playful option for students who enjoy playing sports but don’t have serious athletic experience. At the University, basketball has become an especially popular intramural option in recent years.

“There are three leagues: A, B, and C,” coach of the Organ Donors Kavi Talwalkar ’24 said. “The A league is for people who are competitive, [and is] lot of varsity athletes who aren’t in season who just want to play a competitive and fun game. B League is a little bit in the middle; it’s a mix of people who are really good at basketball [and] people who are still learning…. But C League is the most fun league in my personal opinion. It’s just, ‘Hey, wanna go run around for 40 minutes and have fun?’ I could’ve never played basketball in my life. I could’ve played basketball for a couple years. But it’s just a good community setting.”

The teams come together organically. Sometimes a couple of friends want to try a new sport, and other times an established team from another intramural sport decides to bring their dedication and spirit to the basketball court. Across all the various team configurations, one thing remains the same: the importance of choosing a strong team name.

“There wasn’t much going on at Wesleyan freshman year,” Talwalkar said. “Then one of us found a link to sign up for intramural basketball. So, we signed up, and we’re like, ‘What should we name our team?’ We were down to the last day to decide, and I was looking at my driver’s license and I saw the little heart next to my name. I was like, ‘I’m an organ donor.’ And then we were like, ‘We’re the Organ Donors.’ So we’ve been the Organ Donors since freshman year.”

Goat Coven, one of the teams in the C league, emerged from an intramural soccer team that values camaraderie and expanding opportunities for playing team sports no matter a player’s skill level.

“I was like, ‘There is no C league team that I could have all my friends in,’” Cypress Hubbard-Salk ’24 said. “Since Goat Coven did soccer, I was like, ‘Why don’t we just do it for basketball too?’…We get to keep our fandom, our Instagram account, [and] online presence. We have more supporters sometimes at games than actual players.”

Unlike the other two leagues, which emphasize skill level, the C league offers a rare opportunity for college students to try something they’re bad at, let loose, and be a bit goofy.

“I’m terrible at basketball, and so are most of the people on our team, but the spirit is there,” Simon Moss ’26, the captain of WeSwish said. “I think it’s a lot of fun to run around and pretend like I know what I’m doing.”

That’s not to say the C League is easy, or completely risk-free. Intramural sports are a careful dance, toeing the line between caring too much and caring too little.

“My philosophy is that it’s only fun if you take it somewhat seriously,” Emmett Zamore ’24, a member of the C league team 1 Vine C, said. “If everybody just doesn’t care at all it kind of defeats the purpose of playing a sport. So there’s a balance, especially in the C league.”

For Goat Coven, being bad at basketball is not an excuse, and the team expects everyone to work up a sweat on the court.

“People are really dedicated, they listen,” Hubbard-Salk said. “Even if they’ve never played basketball before, they go in and they play scrappy, they play hard, they shoot. I find it really satisfying to watch people who don’t really know that stuff really put the work in.”

While there is arguably some benefit to bringing a competitive edge to intramural sports, sometimes people take it too far. The game can get serious, and even confrontational. Injuries are not uncommon; Zamore recalled getting scratched, hitting his head, and getting the wind knocked out of him.

“It can get really competitive and intense. And that sometimes bums me out,” Charley “Buckets” Reade ’26, the founder of another C league team, Sturgeon General, said.

And despite the egalitarian ethos of the league, the demographics of the teams are often imbalanced, which can be intimidating or frustrating for some players.

“It’s a smelly, man-dominated area,” Hubbard-Salk said. “My hope for it is that intramural stays good, but also, [that] women start feeling a little bit more comfortable playing basketball.”

Still, players maintain that the goal of the game is to enjoy oneself, and the league hopes to foster an environment of inclusivity as well as amusement. Even though the season is coming to a close, there is still time to witness the magic on the court in the coming weeks. And those who want to get involved can look forward to joining a team next fall.

“This Sunday, Feb. 11 is round one of [the] playoffs,” Talwalkar said. “We’re playing in Beacon [at] the Freeman Athletic Center in the A league game. You’ll catch me wearing a nice little blazer with a buttoned down shirt, some dress pants and dress shoes. An hour later in the B league game, you will see me warming up with my headband, my short shorts, my basketball jersey, going crazy for my team. So come show love for the Organ Donors every Sunday.”

Ella Henn can be reached at ehenn@wesleyan.edu. 

Eugenia Shakhnovskaya can be reached at eshakhnovskaya@wesleyan.edu.

Lula Konner can be reached at lkonner@wesleyan.edu.