The Flat Hat September 10, 2025 by The Flat Hat

The F lat Hat

VICTORY AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

Tribe football outlasts Maine Black Bears in action-packed, rain-soaked home opener

Tyler Hughes was doomed.

The junior quarterback crouched at William and Mary’s 48-yard line, the arms of a 245-pound Maine tackle preventing him from standing. He had been pressured, chased out of the pocket and spun around. Now, facing his own end zone with the Black Bears’ defense screaming down his neck, Hughes had no choice but to let himself be dragged to the turf, stifling a drive that would ultimately prove game-deciding.

That was what it seemed, at least.

“I just knew I had to make a play,” Hughes said. In his first signature moment as a starter, the Tribe signal-caller shed Maine junior defensive lineman Chris Bacon, staying upright long enough to escape his clutches. He reoriented himself and reversed fields, turning towards the blitzing front and rolling to his right. He sprinted up the sideline, making a man miss with a devastating hesitation move before outrunning two more Black Bears.

By the time Hughes was finally taken down, he had scurried to the opposing 25-yard line, electrifying what remained of the Zable Stadium crowd while turning a potential third and 7 into a first and 10. Minutes later, he repeated the feat, improvising another mad dash that brought the hosts to the opposing 1-yard line.

The Tribe wasted no time taking advantage of its quarterback’s explosiveness, as graduate student running back Rashad Raymond punched in a go-ahead touchdown that helped secure William and Mary’s (1-1, 1-0 CAA) dramatic 28-27 victory over Maine (0-2, 0-1 CAA) Saturday, Sept. 6. On the following drive, graduate student linebacker Luke Banbury deflected a Maine pass into the hands of

senior cornerback Jalen Jones, whose teammates engulfed him in a celebratory mob as William and Mary prepared to run the clock out.

“This one tastes good,” William and Mary head coach Mike London said after the victory. “I’m happy and grateful for it.”

The game’s frantic final moments stood in stark contrast to its monotonous beginnings: originally slated to kick off at 6 p.m., the Tribe’s home opener was delayed by lightning multiple times. After roughly an hour of waiting, the teams played three scoreless minutes of football before another flash on the horizon forced players and fans alike to vacate the stadium. The players retreated to their locker rooms, but many members of the audience went home. By the end of the night, the loudest remaining supporters were William and Mary students. The game began in earnest at 8:30 p.m. and concluded 30 minutes before midnight, nearly six hours after it was scheduled to start.

“My Fitbit watch just ran out because we've been out here all day,” London said. “It's almost 12 o’clock.”

Before taking on the Black Bears, the Tribe wrestled with a more unique opponent: boredom. Fired up and ready to take the field at the end of the first delay, William and Mary was forced to linger in its locker room, figuring out how to warm up for a game with no definite start time. According to London, the whiplash between activity and passivity took a mental toll on the Tribe, but his squad did an admirable job of remaining focused during the break. When play eventually resumed, William and Mary took over at its own 46-yard line.

“When we had to go in, it was third and 3, and [we] just had to

start over again whenever they said, ‘Spot the ball,’” London said. “Our mindset is, ‘You know what? Just spot the ball. Put it down wherever you want to put it. Parking lot, wherever you want to put it, and then we got to play.’ I thought the guys did a great job of responding to the moment and controlling the controllables. You can't fight Mother Nature, so we just had to adapt to it and get ready, and that's what the guys did.”

Despite London’s praise, William and Mary wasn’t particularly sharp when it first reentered the field, committing several of the errors that hampered the Tribe during its loss to Furman. Taking advantage of two Maine penalties, the Green and Gold quickly advanced to the Black Bears’ 23-yard line, where its drive died. On fourth and 7, graduate student kicker Keegan Shackford lined up a 40-yard field goal attempt, but for the second consecutive week, a mismanaged snap forced senior holder Andrew Piercy to tuck the ball and run. He was tackled 11 yards behind the line of scrimmage, kick-starting Maine’s first drive of the night.

The Black Bears made it to the Tribe’s 33-yard line before losing steam, but a William and Mary facemask penalty gave them new life. With 2:15 remaining in the first quarter, the visitors took a 7-0 lead as graduate student quarterback Carter Peevy completed a short pass to junior running back Sincere Baines on fourth and goal. The Tribe’s next two possessions went nowhere, and Peevy struck again at the second quarter’s 9:30 mark, breaking free for a 45-yard touchdown run that put the Black Bears up 14-0.

See FOOTBALL page 10

Wednesday, Sept. 3, the Reves Center for International Studies hosted its inaugural Study Abroad Exposition, welcoming back recently returned College of William and Mary students to chat with others about their experience and ask any questions regarding the transfer credit process. The event was organized by Nasha Lewis, associate director of Global Education & InBound Programs.

“This expo is for students who have recently gone abroad (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, Academic Year, you all should come!) to connect with each other, GEO staff, get any applicable transfer credit questions answered,” the Global Education Office wrote.

Connor Gold ’26, a returnee and a GEO employee, welcomed students at the front desk and shared his takeaways from participating in two international programs during his time at the College.

“I think it definitely gave me the best kind of baby steps to sort of understand other cultures and learn new things and learn new people,” Gold said.

The Reves Center hosted the event across the building’s two floors.

Upstairs, GEO staff offered academic and professional support. Senior Associate Director and Deputy Director of Global Education Molly DeStafney, along with Assistant Director of Global Education Lisa Roney, assisted students with questions about the personal reflection essay and the transfer credit process.

while mingling among other returnees. The front desk also offered resources for those interested in studying abroad again during the time they have left at the College.

According to Roney, part of the exposition’s purpose was to support students who may be having trouble adjusting to being back home. Studying abroad, for any length of time, fully immerses students in a different culture, and the “reverse culture shock” that can follow is often overlooked.

“When students return, there is talk about culture shock going overseas, but it's less talked about, the return shock of coming back from being immersed in that culture,” Roney said. “So when students return, and they are kinda in that just kind of feeling empty and not really knowing how to assimilate back into their normal life.”

“This is a good way that, we hope, students can see each other and kind of have someone else to understand and empathize with and say, ‘I feel the same way, I'm in the same boat,’” Roney said.

Generally, studying abroad introduces students to an incredibly wide range of different perspectives and experiences. Hollis Martin ’26, who spent a semester in Rome last fall, described the invaluable impact of his time outside of the United States.

“My favorite part was meeting students from all over the country that went to different schools and getting a perspective on education in the United States,” Martin said.

learn about them,” McKee said. “I think that's fairly invaluable, and you get to also talk to not just these businesses but people in Ireland.” He added that the program exceeded his expectations.

“Ultimately, what I got out of it was far more than I really went into it thinking about,” McKee said.

While studying abroad can offer students a new worldview, traveling to and living in a foreign country is not without its challenges. Political instability, global pandemics or other unforeseen circumstances can disrupt program itineraries at a moment's notice.

Attendees travelled all over for a variety of programs, each spanning different lengths. Some spent this past summer abroad, while others were away for a semester, or even the entire previous academic year.

Other staff members taught students how to highlight international experiences on LinkedIn and discuss them effectively in job interviews. Downstairs, students had lunch

Roney emphasized that students could greatly benefit from connecting with peers who have shared similar experiences and find support in their company.

For Andrew McKee ’28, an economics major with a business minor, the University College Dublin offered firsthand exposure in his field, something he felt would be difficult to replicate in a traditional classroom environment.

“There's a lot of actual hands-on learning where you get to interact with these entities rather than just

Abby Kumar ’27, who studied in South Africa this summer, explained how visa complications affected the academic portion of her trip.

“We were taking two classes, but it was definitely less academicfocused,” Kumar said. “I think one of the reasons was because my professor wasn't able to actually come, because of visa issues.”

news insight

You are here at the alma mater of the nation. You came from across the country and around the world. Each of you brings different opinions, different ideas, different stories, different interests.

President Katherine A. Rowe

Monday, Sept. 8, the College of William and Maryʼs Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences announced the beginning of its Blue Horizons Visiting Fellows Program, with former Secretary of State John F. Kerry serving as its ﬁrst fellow.

John Kerryʼs life has been marked by his service to the United States. He served as the nationʼs 68th Secretary of State during former President Barack Obamaʼs administration from 2013 to 2017. During his term, Kerry assisted in the successful negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement. Under the Biden Administration, he became the ﬁrst-ever Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and the ﬁrst Principal to sit on the National Security Council with his role entirely dedicated to taking action against climate change. Kerry also represented the state of Massachusetts as a Senator from 1985-2013 and further served in the U.S. Navy, with two combat tours of Vietnam for which he received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V and three Purple Hearts. In May of 2024, President Joe Biden awarded Kerry the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his commitment to public service.

Kerry will participate in a Fireside Chat on Wednesday, Oct. 15, to discuss the increased pressures on coastal regions and marine habitats despite humanityʼs immense scientiﬁc advancements. This event is promised to be a pillar of the Collegeʼs Year of the Environment programming, which aims to advance the Collegeʼs sustainability eﬀorts while celebrating the commitment to protecting the environment.

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Hannah Wolfe ’26 receives President’s Award for Service to Community, re ects on volunteer work with The Arc

It was only two weeks prior to the College of William and Mary’s annual Convocation when Hannah Wolfe ’26 was noti ed that she was the recipient of the President’s Award for Service to the Community. In what was a ceremony celebrating the formal welcome of new students, Wolfe left the event with one of the College’s highest honors for service.

“I was really shocked,” Wolfe said. “ ey emailed me about two weeks before Convocation and said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve been chosen for the President’s Award.’ I didn’t even think I would do community service when I came here, let alone be recognized for it.”

e President’s Award for Service to the Community recognizes one student and one faculty member who demonstrate a sustained commitment to service and making an impact on the community. Wolfe submitted a personal essay and received a letter of recommendation from her community partner: Kellie Wasson, programs and volunteer coordinator at e Arc of Greater Williamsburg.

Wolfe described the ceremony as a full-circle moment, recalling her experience at Convocation when she was a freshman.

“I remember as a freshman, sitting through that Convocation, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is so special,’” Wolfe said. “ en, senior year, getting an award during it. So, it was just a really cool re ection.”

e award included a $500 donation made in Wolfe’s name to a community organization of her choice. For Wolfe, the decision was easy.

“I gave it to e Arc, so they got the $500, which is really cool,” she said.

Wolfe’s journey into community service began in her freshman year. At the time, she did not foresee herself as someone who would devote herself in college to volunteering. Growing up in Su$olk, Va., much of Wolfe’s time in high school was spent on soccer and academics.

“In high school, I played club soccer, and it felt like every weekend I was driving an hour and a half to games,” Wolfe said. “I wasn’t in any service clubs. Honestly, I didn’t picture myself getting involved in that way in college.”

rough her sorority, Wolfe learned about the opportunity to volunteer as a literacy tutor with e Arc, a local nonpro t serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She signed up and quickly realized how meaningful the work could be.

“When you hear ‘literacy tutor,’ you might think it’s just about reading,” Wolfe said. “But it’s also about building connections. Sometimes we color, sometimes we just talk. It’s about showing up, being consistent and creating relationships.”

By her sophomore year, Wolfe was chosen to serve as Director of Service and Philanthropy for her sorority. In this new leadership role, Wolfe co-led e Arc’s literacy program and coordinated e$orts to win the Students for University Advancement’s 2024 Impact Week, which fundraised literacy supplies for the tutoring program.

“I loved it so much that I wanted to keep going,” she said.

After her tenure as Director of Service and Philanthropy, Wolfe applied to become Vice President of Philanthropy for the College’s panhellenic community. is role brought on even larger responsibilities, including overseeing some of e Arc’s most beloved traditions.

Among these traditions is the Arc Carnival, an annual event that brings together more than 200 Arc clients and student volunteers for a day of games, music and celebration.

“ e logistics are a lot,” Wolfe said. “You’re matching each client with a student partner, making sure preferences line up. If I know a male client loves sports, I’ll try to pair him with a fraternity member who’s into sports, too. You’re checking that games are accessible, that we’ve got enough water, that the location works. It’s a lot of moving pieces.”

But for Wolfe, the e$ort is always worth the smiles of participants.

“Even if things don’t go perfectly, we make do along the way,” Wolfe said. “So a lot goes behind it, but it’s always a hit.”

Wolfe’s passion for community work is deeply rooted in her own experiences. She experienced epilepsy during childhood and described often feeling misunderstood by her peers.

“I always felt a little bit di$erent than my peers in elementary school,” Wolfe said. “I felt a bit like an outcast and ended up moving schools due to it.” ose experiences inspired Wolfe to become involved with the Epilepsy Foundation of America during high school. At the College, Wolfe leaned into the school’s core value of belonging and became drawn to service roles that emphasized education and empowerment.

“For having epilepsy, people assume that cognitively you might not be there because they’re not educated on it,” Wolfe said. “Just because someone has a developmental disability doesn’t mean they can’t read or learn. It’s about educating yourself, educating others and building community.”

In addition to her work with e Arc, Wolfe has pursued opportunities through the College’s O ce of Civic and Community Engagement. e o ce connects students with local nonpro ts and o$ers the Civic Leadership Program, a yearlong cohort designed to develop community leaders.

Wolfe was a member of the 2024 cohort and highlighted her time spent as a teaching assistant for Camp Eager, a coding camp for rising third-graders to high school seniors run through the College’s School of Education.

“I’m a huge proponent of that program,” Wolfe said. “It taught me how to be a leader in a community. Not just doing the work, but thinking about the emotions and stresses that come with leadership.”

For Wolfe, receiving the President’s Award for Service to the Community is representative of an amalgamation of e$orts from many students, faculty and community members who have worked side-byside with her.

“When I got the award, my rst thought was, this isn’t just me,” she said. “So many people deserve recognition because I don’t do it alone. It’s always a team e$ort.”

In her senior year, Wolfe is helping plan e Arc’s upcoming fall dance and brainstorming new fundraisers with other Fraternity and Sorority Life leaders to help support e Arc’s capital campaign to fund a new building for their programs.

“I think for me, service has become about dialogue, not monologue,” Wolfe said. “It’s not about coming in and saying, ‘Here’s what I think you need.’ It’s about asking, ‘What do you want? How can I support you?’ I’ve found it’s most productive interacting with your community partners and doing it together.”

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COURTESY IMAGE / HANNAH WOLFE

Wolfe participated in the 2024 cohort of the Civil Leadership P rogram, designed to help students develop as community lead ers.

MOLLY

Wolfe discusses passion for community service work, multiple philanthropic leadership opportunities

Former Secretary of State Kerry to be VIMS inaugural Blue Horizons fellow

College , City of Williamsburg prepare for nation’s 250th anniversary

Historical projects prepped for upcoming conference highlighting local colonial roots

Saturday, July 4, 2026, the United States of America will celebrate its 250th anniversary. To Williamsburg, however, preparations for the celebration started several years ago with the launch of the “For 2026” conference series. The series was designed to consist of five conferences on various aspects of underappreciated or understudied revolutionary history, beginning with “Revolutionary Legacies” in 2022, and culminating next year with the semiquincentennial.

The purpose of the “For 2026” conference series is to uncover and learn from Williamsburg’s complex legacy, presenting the results to the community and the nation next July. Panels, workshops and site visits have allowed conference-goers to dive deep into the history of Williamsburg — and, by extension, America.

Colonial Williamsburg has also had the opportunity to host an annual event titled “A Common Cause To All.” Beginning in 2023, the program has occurred three times every midMarch since then. Aiming to mirror the “Committees of Correspondence” of the Revolutionary War, responsible for coordinating the nation’s plan to gain freedom from the British, the conference has brought together historians from around the country to commemorate America’s little-known bits of history and advocate on behalf of a common sense of unity moving forward.

Robert Currie, the program lead for CW’s events, spoke on the unique nature of Williamsburg’s relationship with the semiquincentennial.

“We think it’s a tremendous opportunity to highlight Williamsburg’s central role in the early American story,” Currie said. “Unlike a lot of other cities that are important in

the early American story, you can actually walk through this immersive setting and be in the place where it happened.”

Currie explained how the long-term process of discussing and celebrating events allows for a more complete picture of the American Revolution — one that neither begins nor ends in 1776. Currie highlighted a new program called “Promise of Freedom,” which deals with the implications of Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation of 1775 — a somewhat overlooked yet important historical event for understanding the Revolution.

Also featured in the 250th anniversary initiatives is adjunct professor of history Holly White, one of seven fellows working under the College of William and Mary’s Office of Strategic Cultural Partnerships. White aims to broaden understanding of the event and democratize untold stories by launching the Children of the American Revolution Project.

An important facet of CARP is creating resources for K–6 education that highlight the roles that children played during the Revolutionary War. This includes identifying those children, their family lineages and their upbringings, and incorporating their stories into educational materials to be presented in the months prior to July 2026.

White emphasized that children were not merely observers but active participants in the revolutionary era, pointing to politically motivated actions taken by children during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War. Some expressed resistance symbolically, through explicitly pro-revolutionary needlework, while others voiced their revolutionary ideas publicly.

“The history of childhood and youth is an important field,” she said. “[We are] thinking about children as having agency in their own right and removing children in the past from our

modern assumptions about what children are capable of.”

White shared the story of a young teenager incensed over British oppression who began throwing rocks at British soldiers in Boston. This event, which precipitated the bloody confrontation that would come to be known as the Boston Massacre, was a pivotal moment for colonial resistance.

White emphasized that such actions are cause for a reevaluation of the traditional historical narrative. Often, historians and spectators alike rely on an adult-centered view of history, sometimes discounting or entirely missing the experiences of children during historical events.

“Being able to see these stories and narratives of children participating in major political milestones for our country will be of extra interest to kids,” White said.

Currie echoed similar sentiments, remarking that visitors to CW sometimes felt dissatisfied with how much certain issues were or were not covered in their museums, guided tours and online educational materials.

“Invariably, people will say, ‘I was disappointed not to see more about the story of the enslaved,’” Currie said.

Currie noted that such a divide on issues of race, gender and age complicates the semiquincentennial but that the actions of those running local conferences and of researchers at the College, including White, have created a welcoming space for celebration and a fuller representation of our nation’s origin story.

History Ph.D. student Kirsten A. Smitherman, M.A. ’25 commented on the celebration, which she sees as essential for maintaining national identity, especially in light of the tense political climate.

“I think celebrating the anniversary is really wonderful,” Smitherman said.

Students express mixed emotions about residential housing delay

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Noah Tomlinson ’27 was looking forward to moving into the Global Village, located in Pine Hall, as a part of the Arabic House.

“I was living off campus, so I was like, ‘This sounds great. I’d love to be in a brand new dorm,’” he said.

Tomlinson decided to return to on-campus living to increase his convenience and connection to campus.

“That was a big thing for me, because I lived off campus, so I just wanted to be close to everything,” Tomlinson said. “Kind of ironic how it turned out.”

The College of William and Mary announced a temporary delay in the completion of Pine Hall, Cedar Hall and Oak Hall Thursday, July 31. This announcement impacted around 900 students.

The College has prioritized temporarily housing first-year students in both Richmond Hall and the Green and Gold Village. It relocated most upperclassmen to the Williamsburg Woodlands Hotel and Suites in Colonial Williamsburg for the remainder of the delay.

Tomlinson was frustrated when he heard the announcement and learned he’d been relocated to the Woodlands Hotel.

“Oh, I was pissed,” he said. “The biggest thing for me was that the months leading up to the announcement were dead silent.”

He added that the timing of the decision made the situation more difficult, since students like himself had already prepared for the upcoming semester under the assumption that they would be living on campus.

“So hearing that announcement a couple of weeks before we were supposed to move in was kind of shitty.” Tomlinson said. “It was the fact that they didn’t really give us any warning. Now, all of a sudden, I had to change my move-in plans.”

Brian Medina ’28 expressed a more optimistic view of the delay and living in the Woodlands Hotel.

“There were a couple of things I was concerned

about, but otherwise, I was happy with it,” he said. “Living in a hotel sounded like it would be a good time.”

Despite his initial reservations, he quickly found reasons to look forward to the change.

“I honestly started feeling more optimistic about it because the hotel is far away, but it’s a hotel,” Medina said. “It’s going to be nice.”

Medina did take issue, though, with the shuttle service from the hotel to campus because he has found it to be inconsistent. According to Medina, the shuttle would sometimes show up late and not follow the predetermined route he was told it would.

“We were specifically told the shuttle would go from Woodlands to Sadler to Caf,” Medina said. “However, that hasn’t always been the case.”

He explained that some drivers have deviated from the expected route, creating uncertainty for the students relying on the shuttle service to get to campus.

“Apparently, there are some drivers that will take you to Caf first from Woodlands instead of Sadler, which hasn’t messed with my schedule yet, but I’m afraid [that it] could make me late for an event or class,” Medina went on to say.

Still, despite the issues he has faced with the transportation system, Medina emphasized that he has overall enjoyed the experience of living in the hotel.

“I would say living in the hotel is awesome,” he said. “It’s just that transportation is pretty tough.”

When asked to comment on Medina’s experience with the Woodlands shuttle, Assistant Director of Media Relations under University Communications, Nathan Warters, spoke on behalf of William and Mary Residence Life.

Warters reiterated how the College is working with contracted providers to equip relocated students with transportation. He acknowledged that problems can sometimes come up.

“As is the case with any mode of public transportation, unexpected delays and inconveniences sometimes occur,” Warters said.

“With this in mind, we encourage everyone to build in extra time to reach their desired destination. We are in regular contact with our contracted providers to ensure any issues are addressed.”

Aafreen Ali ’26 was one of the Orientation Aides who recently welcomed new students onto campus.

Ali’s orientation group included commuter students and those who were supposed to be living in Cedar Hall. Because of the delay, her Cedar Hall students were split up and relocated between Richmond Hall and GGV.

“I think [the delay] definitely made us tap into our adaptability and flexibility a little bit more,” she said.

Since the delay divided her group, Ali found that, when going to orientation events, creating designated meeting spots between her students’ new locations worked best.

“That definitely helped us save some time in terms of running all the way to Richmond Hall and back to Sadler,” she said.

Ali thought that her orientation group took the situation well.

“I think for the most part, after those first couple of days, they really took it in stride and began bonding as a group,” she said. “It was just nice to see them, you know, conversing and having a little chit-chat between our million Kaplanmandated activities.”

Ali felt orientation was an overall positive experience for herself and her students, in spite of the delay impacting things.

“Overall, it ended up being a positive experience,” she said. “You know, we did have to account for a couple of delays and new factors, [but] that’s just with every orientation. You got to stay flexible with it.”

CAMPUS

SARA SMITH / THE FLAT HAT

Colonial Williamsburgʼs Governorʼs Palace houses historical rel evance in Revoluntionary history.

COURTESY IMAGE / RICKY CARIOTI Williamsburg reenactors march down Dog St. in Colonial Will iamsburg, heckled by Tea Party supporters in street.

President Rowe, Darpan Kapadia welcome students with 2025 convocation

Kapadia encouraged students to live in moment, Rowe addressed shared responsibility for positive change

Wednesday, Aug. 27, the College of William and Mary celebrated the beginning of a new academic year with the traditional Opening Convocation ceremony. The College hosted sustainability and energy business leader Darpan Kapadia ’95 as the keynote speaker.

President of the Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance Dakota Kinsel ’26 delivered the land acknowledgement, paying respect to past and present tribal members. College President

Katherine Rowe then delivered opening remarks.

“You are here at the alma mater of the nation,” Rowe said.

“You came from across the country and around the world. Each of you brings di erent opinions, di erent ideas, di erent stories, di erent interests.”

e Sir Christopher Wren Building is undergoing renovations, leaving the building with a di erent appearance due to the temporary sca olding. Rowe referenced the ongoing construction in her speech.

e fencing and sca olding remind us that institutions do not sustain themselves,” Rowe said. “ ey are built, they are maintained, they are imagined for the future, no matter how iconic they may be.”

Rowe then quoted Virginia Statesman Judge John Charles omas.

“‘It is up to us to be magni cent builders of this future together,’”

she said. Rowe continued her long-standing tradition of launching frisbee disks to the new students as a playful way to remind them that teamwork and joy are fundamental values of the College’s academic experience.

“At William and Mary, we believe positive changes can be cultivated when we make new knowledge together, and that those are changes that will last,” Rowe said. “ ey will last for us; they will last for those around us.”

College Provost Peggy Agouris then stepped up to the podium to deliver remarks.

“We are all here to witness the start of your William and Mary story,” Agouris said. “We are very proud and honored that you have chosen William and Mary to help shape your future. When you start a new adventure, it is tempting to quickly focus on the nish line —

the degree, the job, the what’s next. My advice: don’t fast forward through the story.”

Agouris then quoted Ted Lasso for her next piece of advice to incoming students of the class of 2029.

“‘Be curious, not judgmental,’” she said. “It’s a simple line, and I think that this is exactly the spirit that I hope you carry through your years at William and Mary. Ask questions. Try things you’ve never considered. Let curiosity, not checklists, guide you.”

Class of 2026 President Debbie Ho ’26 ceremonially welcomed the class of 2029 with the help of class presidents Nico Giro-Martin ’27 and Devaughn Henry ’28. From the roof, the three presidents

released the 2029 class banner to Rowe, who accepted it on behalf of the class of 2029 and o cially declared the beginning of the 2025-26 academic year.

Rowe then invited Kapadia to the podium to deliver his speech to the incoming students.

Kapadia opened his remarks by explaining the main reason he decided to enroll at the College over three decades ago.

“34 years ago, I made the same decision you all did to make this campus my next home,” Kapadia said. “I chose William and Mary because it was a place where big ideas met deep roots. A place where important people came to think and went o to change the world.

People like Je erson, Washington, Monroe, Marshall.”

Kapadia emphasized that the application process is behind students and that it is now time to explore the wide range of

opportunities they can experience at the College.

“Own your time here,” Kapadia said. “I’d encourage all of you to take ownership of your education and your experience at William and Mary. at starts with a clean slate. Leave behind the application narrative you crafted to get here. Use this time to explore anything and everything that sparks your interest. You will never have more agency over your time than you do right now.”

Kapadia encouraged students not to approach their education linearly, but rather to approach their time at the College with an open mind and open heart.

“Don’t get on the treadmill,” Kapadia said. “What I’m talking about is the treadmill of life. The belief that one step must lead to the next and then to the next. Classes, clubs, grades, internships — they matter a lot, but only if you’re pursuing them for the right reasons. Curiosity, discovery, growth — not

just to check boxes.”

Kapadia reassured the incoming students that the College is a campus built on mutual support and that their classmates are likely their greatest resources.

“Learn from each other,” Kapadia said. “Today, you can accumulate more information than you’ll ever need without leaving your kitchen table. Instead, you came here to learn from your community. Some of the biggest ideas you’ll encounter may come from those sitting around you.”

Kapadia concluded with a celebratory send-o for the class of 2029.

“None of us do this alone,” he said. “ at’s why I’m here today, I’m

committed to supporting the institution that built the pieces of who I am. Lifting William and Mary up will lift all of you up, and you all will make the di erence. Every moment. You are now an essential part of William and Mary’s 333-year legacy. Make us proud.”

Rowe then presented the President’s Award for Service to the Community to Hannah Wolfe ’26 and Associate Professor of ESL/Bilingual Education and Co-Director of the W&M Scholars Undergraduate Research Experience Katherine Barko-Alva.

Rowe o cially announced the start of the 333rd academic year. Following the alma mater, the class of 2029 and new students donned their class year pins and made their way through the Wren Building as a ceremonial welcome to the College.

Transfer student Simon Young ’28 highlighted moments of the ceremony that stood out to him the most.

“I’m a new transfer student, and so being a part of that big procession was a really cool moment,” Young said. “I think it showed just how much William and Mary cares about making sure that we feel like we belong. Seeing all the students showing out and supporting the new students, myself included, as well as the freshmen, felt amazing, and it felt like I’m in an environment where people really care.”

Kapadia’s remarks advising students not to simply go through the motions during their four years at the College particularly resonated with Young as he embarks on his personal journey.

“His discussion about making sure you’re not on the ‘treadmill of life,’ that you’re taking steps that you want to take, that you’re doing things you want to do and that you’re not getting worried about living for your resume instead of living for your life, your graduation, your eulogy, that really resonated,” Young said.

SA pushes for Woodlands student support, con rms IEC and Attorney General

Attorney General Hoffman discusses increasing transparency, making SA code more accessible

SUSANNAH POTEET

CHIEF

fair election and referendum processes. During election cycles in which the legitimacy of the results is questioned, such as in the 2024 and 2025 elections, the IEC acts as counsel to the Judicial Review

Board regarding the definition of appropriate candidate actions.

The senate confirmed Sophia Hoffman ’26 as Attorney General. Hoffman previously served as the IEC Chair and was a member of the commission during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. Hoffman emphasized that her main goal for her new position is transparency and making the Student Assembly code as understandable as possible.

The senate confirmed Meagan Kenney ’27 as IEC Chair. Kenney previously served on the commission in the 2024-25 school year. The senate confirmed Annika Johnson ’28 as IEC Commissioner. The executive commented on the construction delays, which have displaced non-freshman students from on-campus housing to the Williamsburg Woodlands Hotel & Suites, an official Colonial Williamsburg Hotel. The delay in construction was announced by the College in July, and students originally assigned to live in the newly constructed Oak, Cedar and Pine halls are now a 30-minute walk away from campus. The executive expressed their

determination to help the students housed in the hotel and reported on their work to make transportation arrangements more accessible to students. The Woodlands Shuttle, which transports students from the Woodlands Hotel to the Sadler Center on a regular daily schedule, has extended its hours until 11 p.m. due to pressure from both students and administration.

In order to fully accommodate students who live at the Woodlands Hotel, the executive discussing the possibility of extending the shuttle working hours until 1 a.m.

Eva’s Apple #8: Balloon your own adventure

One time, my mom and I were on a lil boat. While on said boat, the absolute diva who was manning the sails kept shouting, “SOMETHING

NEWWWWWWW,” and tipping the vessel so the mast was basically parallel to the water. By the end of that boat ride, my mom and I wanted anything but “something new.” We wanted something familiar. Something stale.

I imagine this is how you feel about my writing. I just can’t stop switching things up. None of my readers can find any sense of regularity from column to column, save the TV references and general undertone of passive aggression. Perhaps my creativity is more destructive than it is generative. I forsake nostalgia for novelty at every turn. Alas, I must continue to innovate. Every “Shark Tank” entrepreneur starts somewhere, and you are bearing witness to my origin story. I am about to do something that no writer in the history of writing has ever done before (editors, you have better things to do than fact check me).

Welcome to a special choose your own adventure edition of Eva’s Apple!

The question this week is as follows:

“What does my favorite balloon animal say about me?”

I make a lot of stuff up in this column, but I’m being honest when I say that balloon art is one of my favorite hobbies. There is depth and nuance to balloon twisting that I am certain you simply do not understand. I doubt that you yourself even know what your favorite balloon animal is. Maybe you think you know, but you’re wrong. Thus, I’m not going to tell you what your favorite balloon animal says about you. Instead, I’m going to tell you what balloon animal is most representative of your identity. Today, you will learn which balloon animal is actually your favorite. To do this, I’m gonna tell you a little story. Every choice you make here will bring you closer to the truth, although I’m not sure you’re ready to face it.

1) Our story begins with chaos. You wake up in a burrito and realize that you are the refried beans. You were a human just yesterday and cannot seem

COMIC

to remember how or why this happened. What is your first thought?

a. What’s going on? If only I could ask my favorite satire advice columnist for guidance in this dark moment. [skip to #2]

b. You think aloud, “I needa get out of here, man” [skip to #3]

c. Just a series of onomatopoeias because refried beans don’t have thoughts [skip to #4]

2) Be honest, here. Have you ever actually submitted a question to Eva’s Apple?

a. No :( I’m sorry [skip to #5]

b. Yes [skip to #6]

c. Yes (but I’m lying) [skip to #5]

3) The lettuce notices how scared you look and gives you their phone. You’re allowed to message one of the two existing group chats on Lettuce’s phone. Who do you ask for help?

a. The chat called “Help center for humans accidentally turned into burrito ingredients” [skip to #8]

b. Unnamed group chat with 45 contacts all named Nathan [skip to #7]

c. Lettuce has an android. You’ll figure this one out on your own. [skip to #6]

4) Favorite onomatopoeia?

a. Quack [skip to #8]

b. Honk (like the sound a goose makes) [skip to #6]

c. Beep [skip to #3]

5) You lose. I’m not assigning you a balloon animal. I’m embarrassed for you, diva. [skip to the epilogue]

6) You are an honest person, and you stay true to yourself. That’s something others respect about you. The shredded cheese, who seems to be the one in charge around here, is envious of your charm and challenges you to a lifting competition (get it? because it’s shredded cheese?). What do you do?

a. The only thing you can do: you lift. [skip to #13]

b. Cry [skip to #11]

c. You call out the 326th most popular name in the United States in hopes that someone will come to your rescue. “Nathan?” You try once more. “Is there anyone here who can help me? Perhaps someone named Nathan?” [skip to #7]

7) As luck would have it, you are part of a batch of catered birthday burritos that a kid named Nathan’s mom got him for his seventh birthday. Nathan pulls out a

Willy and Mary #12

book of spells from his pocket and utters an incantation to turn you back into a human. Unfortunately, Nathan is only seven years old; his magic could still use a little work. What are your final words before Nathan’s spell is cast?

a. You don’t need words. You’re gonna fight him. [skip to #10]

b. “What did I do to deserve this?!?!” [skip to #14]

c. Nothing. Refried beans don’t talk [skip to #12]

8) A child named Nathan comes out of nowhere to eat his burrito. He’s wearing a balloon crown, because he’s turning seven years old today! Unfortunately, the help center you messaged will get back to you in three to four business days, so you’re out of luck. Should’ve texted Nathan, man. Any final plea?

a. Can’t think of anything. You’re too distracted by how lit Nathan’s balloon crown is. [skip to #9]

b. No plea necessary. You’re ready to fight Nathan. [skip to #10]

c. “PLEASE JUST LET ME CONSULT MY FAVORITE SATIRE ADVICE COLUMNIST. PLEASEEEE” [skip to #2]

9) You meet an untimely end, but we can say with complete certainty that your identity is best represented by a balloon crown. Maybe you’re superficial and tacky, but boy do you demand attention! [skip to the epilogue]

10) C'mon man. Refried beans can’t fight. You meet your doom, but I am absolutely sure that your essence is best captured by a balloon sword. You’re not the most useful, but most people from ages three to 37 find you entertaining. [skip to the epilogue]

11) The burrito gets eaten before either of you can compete. You meet an untimely end, but at least your actions prove that your identity is most accurately represented by a balloon dog with a frowny face drawn on it. You are deeply emotional and likely disappointed with the end of your story today, but your depth and nuance are actually your greatest strengths. [skip to the epilogue]

12) Nathan accidentally cast a “do over” spell, so you’re transported back to the beginning of the day to give it another try. [skip to #1]

13) You lose, because refried beans can’t lift weights, although that doesn’t matter much anyway. Within the minute, the burrito gets eaten and all the ingredients, including you, meet their unfortunate fate. Still, your behavior in your final moments leaves me with no doubt in my mind that your identity is best represented by a balloon giraffe. You always stand tall, even though the haters wonder if you’re just a balloon dog with a really long neck. [skip to the epilogue]

14) You’re still refried beans. Nathan accidentally cast an accountability spell. [skip to #2]

Epilogue: You don’t like your result? Play again! It’s not ideal that you have to spend two weeks until the next installment of Eva’s Apple, but hopefully this will keep you entertained until then. Don’t get all twisted up about it.

EvaJaber‘28(she/her)isaprospective Englishorinternationalrelationsmajor. SheisamemberoftheCleftomaniacs,an acappellagroup,anESLtutorandhopes toencouragepeace-mindedadvocacyon campus.Contactheratehjaber@wm.edu.

As a child of an immigrant (and to that point, two financially cautious individuals not coming from wealth), I’ve always shared my father’s reservation toward art and the supposed necessity of it, despite being drawn toward poetry and literature since my seminal experiences with them in high school. Especially during college, as I began to seriously make plans for my own future, I was forced to confront this confusing, sinking question — whether or not the impulse I had to create art and my aspirations to be an artist were really worth pursuing. For most of my life this had been a given. Ever since middle school, falling in love with teammates, coworkers, close friends and sometimes the same person over and over again, I was able to maintain the conviction that the sonnets and prose I wrote inspired by my itinerant crushes mattered on an existential level. As long as there was someone to long for at night, I knew intuitively that life mattered, and so did my art.

Eventually, I got tired of being in love. I was forced to confront how the certainty I projected onto the objects of my affection was degrading and untrue: the ugliest truth that threatened to undo the meaning I had built my life around. But as Jean Rhys once wrote, “you imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn’t. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic: it’s in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.” After the painful removal of this existential certainty that simply adoring someone was enough of a reason to live, the impulse to create, the belief that my experience mattered — after being in question for a long, empty, painful while — remained. Different, not as passionately convinced, but undeniably there.

And the opposite impulse — that art, that looking inward and attempting to transcribe some of the soul’s contents, is a frivolous activity for the privileged — remains also, but equally tempered by the truth. The refusal of the vital task to know ourselves, to deeply feel our own lives, will result in the most excruciating regret one can experience. In a book written by another artist, Sheila Heti, the narrator describes the main character Mira after leaving her father to pursue her dreams of literary fame thus: “she had gone into the world thinking she could achieve it, but all she had achieved was this strange distance from the person she loved.” Afraid of confronting her father’s love for her and his loneliness without her, Mira sees the vanity and hollowness of the aspirations that kept her from him. And then quickly, as she spends his last days with him, he dies, and Mira is left with the futile understanding that her father was not who she imag-

ined he was, and that she feared the depth of her love for him, her loneliness without him. And she is left alone in the world with the books she could only regret loving more than her father, and the pain of not loving her father while he was still alive.

Having my own deep, complicated and loving connection to my family and literature alike, I have always been torn between acting as I should and being what I am. I think many artists house this fundamental contradiction and struggle with it throughout their lives. And meaning is neither something to take up our time while we exist, nor a cheap, futile project — it is an eventuality. Artists have that intuition, and attempt to cut through the illusions of our life to show us the inclinations of our heart lest we realize too late that despite all its pain, we do love the world and others, because we are so often ungracious or unkind with that love, like little children embarrassed by our feelings. One moves through life regardless of the consideration of difficult existential questions: art helps us to grapple with these things, offers us proof that people have been through versions of our hardship before.

And as an artist, when you are in the midst of creating, waiting for the next word, line or image to emerge, you know that you have something in common with the writers of mythology, with the creators of works of classic literature, or the directors of movies or the writers of songs or compositions, etc. You touch something divine and human that undoes any absolute certainties of meaninglessness, of hatred for the world, and you remember that the events of your life, the intense love, despair, dread and incredulous hope of life, matter deeply to you despite any attempt to escape this fact. It’s a shock. In a mind grasping for control, art lifts the curtain and shows us our naked humanity. Its creation is as inevitable as love, and the question of — should I be an artist? Is it worth it? — has an answer that I’ve always known.

NoraYoon’27isachemistrymajor. Theyenjoywritingpoetryforthecampusliterarymagazine,TheGalleryand readingwhateverbookshaveagood vibetothem.Theyalsolikesittingby largebodiesofwater,drinkinglotsof coffeeandoverthinkingmovies,songs andthingsingeneral.Contactthemat giyoon@wm.edu.

GRAPHIC BY ANGELINA JOA / THE FLAT HAT

GRAPHIC BY MICHAEL GABRIEL / THE FLAT HAT

COMIC BY MICHAEL GABRIEL / THE FLAT HAT

Talk to people

Michael Gabriel FLAT HAT GRAPHICS EDITOR

When I got to this school, I didn’t really have a choice. Aside from a handful of people, I knew no one. I think it would have been easy to just keep to myself, eliminate distractions and focus on schoolwork, but I just couldn’t do that. I wanted to meet people.

Like most freshmen, it started with my dorm. My roommate and I met everyone on our floor during orientation. We all would go on random side quests to Wawa or Goodwill, talking about our stories and where we came from and making connections. Then we met the people on the other floors, and the process repeated.

As the weeks went by, friends I made in the dorm introduced me to people from other dorms. Next thing you know, I was traveling across campus to play Spikeball with a completely different hall of people.

There were also people I met by sheer happenstance. We were in line together at Caf, both showed up to a club interest meeting (for a club that neither of us would ever join) or maybe were in a lab together.

By the end of my freshman year, I had a pretty random web of friends all across campus. I wasn’t buddybuddy with everyone, of course. There

were some people I was closer with than others, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t sit with any of them at Caf or walk with them to class. It was just nice to have some familiar faces in my day to day. When we got back to campus this year, I was sitting at Sadler with two people I had met in completely different places last year. It was kind of like that feeling when you see your grandparents from both sides together for the first time. Worlds collided. I introduced the two to each other, and immediately one of them asked the other guy, “So here’s the milliondollar question: how do you know Michael?” It was funny, but it made me realize just how many people I had met in my first year.

They say he who knows everyone knows no one. That was a saying that always bothered me.

I’m not writing this to boast that I know a lot of people. A lot of people struggle with conquering their social anxiety on the regular, including myself. The key is that you have to seek discomfort. You have to get past all the supposed little awkward things in life that we stress over. It doesn’t hurt to break up awkward silence, it doesn’t hurt to compliment someone on their jersey and it sure doesn’t hurt to just say hi to someone in the hall.

Yes, a lot of the time the person might just look at you strangely and dig their head deeper into their phone, but all it takes is one little interaction to spark a relationship that lasts.

I don’t really know what drove me to sit down and write this piece. My dad always joked that my mom could start a conversation with anyone. Maybe I get this drive from her. I don’t know. Go say hi to someone. I’ll leave it at that.

Michael Gabriel ’28 is currently undecided on his major, but he enjoys history and the sciences. Here at The Flat Hat, he is one of the Graphics Editors and contributes an issue of his Willy and Mary comic almost every edition. He is a big baseball fan, likes the outdoors and is always happy to talk to anyone about anything. Contact him at mdgabriel@ wm.edu.

Writing and reading, specifically writing and reading poetry, can seem like a wasteful thing. For some people, I am sure that it is. Reading and writing outside of the classroom, or for any purpose other than work, is impractical to them. The poet is a vocation lacking any use, and, outside of the English classroom, the poet must die a quiet, unrecognized death.

I am sure that those types of people, people who are skeptical of art and artists, are quite content with this arrangement for poetry. I do hope that they are, for a simple reason: no one has to make art. No one has to write or read, and no one has to write or read poetry either. I cannot find a reason, honestly, compelling one to do anything one doesn’t already want to do.

It must be said as well that that writing is not for everyone. Even if I could make a case here for everyone to pick up the pen, I would not, because that case is purely self-interested. But this opinion piece is not self-interested. This opinion is for everyone.

This opinion seeks college students who, like myself, are either resuming — or perhaps starting — their college journey this semester. We are in the best place, now, to try something new. What else are we advised to do in college, if it is not to try new things? And, if we should try new things, why not let one

of these things be poetry?

Such is my central point: I think that more people should read (and write) poetry. Poetry is not a wasteful thing. To me, poetry is the clearest opposite to waste that exists in this world. That simple notion is why I am writing this opinion piece: because I am afraid. I am afraid that with fewer and fewer people reading and writing poetry, less and less knowledge of the joys of poetry will be known by all. And that is a ghastly thought. Poetry is too important to die quietly. Poetry is too important to be left solely to academics, to creative writing or English degrees. No, instead, we must all read and write more poetry. But why must we? What’s the harm of leaving poetry to the people best suited for understanding it, for loving it, for reading and writing it, for studying it? I say, great harm. We cannot leave poetry to one group any more than any other art form must only be left to the experts, to the critics, to the artists. Art is not made for only one, and is meant for everyone. Not everyone must consume art, but everyone must be afforded the opportunity to. In line with this, I believe that people must reconsider their ignorance of poetry as a forced, not free, choice. It is not you who decided to leave poetry behind, or to never have encountered it. That fact lies squarely in the court

Joe Rogan: The end of comedy

Avi Joshi CHIEF OPINIONS WRITER

Modern comedy is in serious trouble. Long gone are the days of the most popular comedians being voices for the general public, using jokes to not just entertain but also deeply critique the institutional evils that plague everyday life. Modern comedy has entered an era of emphasizing anti-woke rhetoric and championing free speech. The man heading this movement, and the man who is at large fault for the downfall of nuanced, interesting comedy is Joe Rogan. For fear of going straight into ranting, I want to explain the history behind Rogan and the Rogansphere. Joe Rogan first began the “Joe Rogan Experience” in 2009. He was inspired by some of the earliest forms of podcasts created by guys like Tom Green. Since then, Joe Rogan and his podcast have become the biggest in the world. Part of Joe Rogan’s whole shtick is that he claims to be a “real” comedian who understands the art of making people laugh. This is not true. The best evidence I can give you is to just listen to the podcast. Most of the time, Rogan is never the reason something is funny. Oftentimes, jokes fly completely over his meathead brain. There are so many compilations on YouTube of his guests making jokes that he simply does not understand. Not to mention, all of the comedy specials that Rogan has done are genuinely so bad, they are difficult to watch. He has no tone besides yelling, and his jokes are not written well. So no, Joe Rogan is not a “real” comedian.

In defense of poetry

Neil Dongre THE FLAT HAT

of society. When we were taught what poetry meant, what it stood for, and what it did, we were made to think of poetry as a riddle to be answered, a question to be settled. Something deliberately obtuse, obscure, ineliminably complex. After a long struggle to determine the symbolism and themes behind the poetry we read, the poem was discarded and replaced with another one. And so did the cycle continue, until we (as a generation) swore never to read poetry (or any book, really) again. We knew the price that we paid for trying to read it as study; and for too many of us, it simply wasn’t worth it. For the most part, I approve of this resentment — when appropriate. This resentment flows from miseducation, rather than too much education, in my opinion. We were never taught why we read, why we write, but instead how to read, how to write. We were not taught to be curious, we were simply taught how not to be curious. We were told to chase a goal — true understanding — in our classes without understanding why this goal should matter to us. In our frustration, I believe we pinned our disdain onto the art, rather than onto the classroom, or the school. We thought then — and still think — that the art of poetry is a vestige of wealth, a pretentious and vague craft, a mere formula to be manipulated by its readers in order to find its answer.

But poetry, to me, offers no answers. It offers no explanations. No one should know how to do taxes from a poem. But when we are taught poetry as though it were like taxes, like eating or cleaning, like it is work, it is a small wonder why our generation does not partake! We must therefore majorly readjust our thinking of poetry, if we want it to survive. My interpretation of what poetry is, what it does, follows from this idea.

Perhaps, instead of an answer, all poetry contains a premise. A premise, a simple statement, any adage that takes a position on something. Our fiction holds premises, our actions do, why not

So, if Rogan isn’t a real comedian, why do I feel like he is destroying comedy? This is where the Rogansphere comes in. The Rogansphere encompasses all of the comedians that have appeared on the “JRE” and, immediately afterwards, saw an increase in their own popularity across all platforms. These would be guys like Bert Kreischer, Tom Segura, Andrew Schulz, Brendan Schaub, etc. These people are not comedians, they are grifters. They want a piece of the money pie so badly that they are willing to suck up to big daddy Joe and do less than the bare minimum when it comes to jokes. Joe Rogan platforms these people, lets them spew verbal shit, and then they all get to make more money while branding themselves as “artists” who just want to have free speech. In all reality, these comedians that Rogan brings on only ever punch down. They do not make jokes, they bully. I think Marc Maron really put it best. Maron is a comedian and podcast pioneer who used to run the “WTF!” Podcast. Recently, he went on to Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee’s podcast, “Bad Friends.” On it, he discussed his opinions on what Joe Rogan has done to comedy, specifically talking about Rogan’s move to Austin, Texas. At one point, Maron says, “Whatever they [Rogan and fellow Austin comics] represented in terms of policy, and it’s not a stretch, it’s like they won. Trans people are frightened and have no ability to get health care anymore and they are afraid of

therefore our poetry? For poetry, in my opinion, the premise is often found in the title, or in the first (or last) few lines. What you make of the premise is up to you; the poem wants you to understand it — and this is the key to enjoying it. In discovering the premise of the poem, and understanding the premise for ourselves, we learn that much more about the world. This is why poetry is so important; when we answer questions we do not even know we have — merely by considering them — we learn something new we would not have otherwise known.

But it is hard to know where to start with poetry. How do we start with a premise, if we don’t know what poem to start with? What poetry should I read? What if I don’t understand what the poem is saying, even with knowledge of its premise? What do I do with a poem after I read it once, twice, three times, and still don’t ‘get it?’ These are wonderful questions, and I think they only prove my point. Poetry, just as a mere topic, is already encouraging us to be curious, to question, and to answer our own questions! Curiosity is at the heart of poetry, and we have gotten somewhere with it already. It’s quite simple in that way, isn’t it?

Yet perhaps not so. There are so many poets to read — and so many more not to. So many poems to write — and so many more poems to avoid writing. Poems are rarely loved universally, poets even less so. Even when one likes a poem or a poet (regardless of whether they should), a poem can still elude our understanding. Inevitably, when faced with an obstacle, we become frustrated — and this applies to poetry as well. When we read a difficult poem, we question ourselves and whether what we are doing is worth it. I think we are right to do this. We are right to question the worth of what we read. But I do not think it is our fault if poetry eludes us sometimes — or often. We don’t know what to make of it, partly due to a poor educa-

being alive and they have no freedom left. So, that’s done. When do you stop with the jokes?” Maron says something similar when it comes to immigration, and I completely agree with him. With the way the world is right now, do we seriously need a bunch of white, meaty bros laughing at suffering and never addressing the reasons for that suffering? No, we need nuanced, interesting comedy. We need comedy that peers into the systems we live in and verbally dismantles them. We need to get back to what the greats of comedy were doing. Comedians like Katt Williams, George Carlin, Bernie Mac, etc. used their incredible writing abilities to not just entertain, but also get people to think and talk about what is REALLY going on. Joe Rogan and his band of meat men want to distract you from reality. They want to get you to think they are cool and smart to be able to control you. Young, straight men are the most vulnerable for this manipulation, and it is painful to see so many guys my age actively choose to lower their IQ and listen to the “JRE”. You are destroying your mind, please wake the f— up. I don’t want to end on a completely sour note, so I am going to list some old and current comedians that ACTUALLY write their own jokes and that I think you should check out instead of Joe Rogan. I already mentioned some of the best comedians of all time in Katt Williams (my personal favorite), Bernie Mac and George Carlin. Marc Maron himself is also pretty good. For my young, straight men who need “bro” comedians, check out Stavros Halkias, Nick Mullen and Adam Friedland. Caleb Hearon is hilarious and has a really wide variety of guests on his podcast. More comedians/podcasts you should check include Steph Tolev, Ralph Barbosa, Dan Soder, Ali Wong, Monét X Change, Trixie Mattel, Katya Zamolodchikova and Greer Barnes. All of these people are so much better to listen to than Rogan, and I implore anyone who is still listening to the “JRE” to stop. AviJoshi’26isanEnglishmajor.Heis amemberoftheAlphaTauOmegafraternity,eatsalotoffoodandplaysthedrums. Contacthimatasjoshi@wm.edu.

tion, partly due to inexperience. But, when we start to do anything, how much do we really need to know beforehand just to start? Must we have to be experts already in order to just, say, enjoy doing something new?

For example, I did not have much of an in-depth education on poetry and poetic form prior to reading poetry and writing. As I became more interested in poetry, I was rewarded with more knowledge. This knowledge became a key for greater enjoyment, and so the cycle continued for me. I hope, if you are inspired to read more poetry, that this is true for you as well. When it comes to reading poetry, don’t try to read — just read. As for writing poetry, I think the same thoughts apply. You do not have to be good. You do not need a rigorous schedule or a station. Just start writing. Do it as much or as little as you like — as long as you do it. When I started writing, I wrote in all sorts of places, at all sorts of times, like on a bench, on my phone, in a bus, in my car, on my car, on one leg or two, in a cramped store bathroom or on a walk outside. I use many different tools: my fingers, my pencils, my pens, or my speech, all to compose whatever comes to mind. Most of my writing (in general) is dull. Most of the poetry I write is remarkably bad. But I keep writing anyway, which is the key. Eventually, some of my poetry becomes less bad. Some of my poems became decent over the years, and a few — I thought — became quite good.

As I kept writing poetry, I even noticed my general writing improving in other genres: nonfiction, fiction, etc. Those few successes I have with poetry make it all worth it — I imagine it is like how an athlete feels finally perfecting a technique or breaking a long losing streak with a well-earned victory. At the end, perhaps there is nothing to the word ‘try.’ We either do or do not. We either are or are not. We either write or we don’t write. We either read or we don’t read. If it is really that simple, then

perhaps I have little to fear after all, for some people will always choose to read, to write, to be. Some people will always choose the opposite. Yet, I know that I was never obliged to write or read poetry. It was a choice that I made once — a commitment to something for no other reason than to feel committed.

I knew then I was not a poet, just a writer of poetry. Not a poet, just a reader of poetry. I was a nobody, a nobody who wrote and read poetry for fun. I was part of a group of nobodies, I thought to myself, who are out in the world right now doing the exact same thing I was doing. And that was a wonderful feeling.

Some poets will never write, and some poets will never read. There will be artists that will never be artists, because they choose differently — or perhaps because the choice was made for them. Perhaps the choice has already been made for you. Certainly, for some of you, it has been — and my words have only revealed that truth. But for some of you, the choice is still yours. Urgently it calls to you, asking you to decide. Whichever choice you make, I applaud your courage, for there is bravery in decisiveness. There is confidence in certainty.

I am certain you, my reader, will choose well. I am certain you, my reader, know exactly which choice you ought to make. I am certain you know which choice to keep making. I hope that choosing here will be the easiest thing you’ve ever done. I hope that choice is simple. I hope that choice is poetry.

NeilDongre(he/him)‘27’isa philosophyandpsychologydoublemajoratWilliam&Maryandhasan appreciationforcreativewriting.Some ofhiscommitmentsincludewriting for(andbeingpartof)theGallery,as wellasnon-writingclubslikeClub BrazilianJiu-JitsuandClubWrestling. Inhissparetime,helikestoread,write, andmissappointments.Contacthimat nddongre@wm.edu.

GUEST COLUMN

GRAPHIC BY MICHAEL GABRIEL / THE FLAT HAT

COURTESY IMAGE / RAWPIXEL

SERVING UP COMMUNITY

Club Cooking aims to create inclusive space for sharing food

From Commons Dining Hall to the Sadler Center, The Bake Shop to Aromas and Kilwins to Baskin Robbins, students at the College of William and Mary have a lot of options on their plate when it comes to food. However, a new option is in the works: a small group of students are working hard to create a space where students can combine their meals with community and education, and they are calling it Club Cooking.

Club Cooking is a new Recognized Student Organization at the College that became official in April of this year. As they began to plan, the club’s executive board emphasized the importance of feedback from potential members.

“We’ve sent out multiple different kinds of forms,” club president Nicholas Friedel ’28 said. “We have a form on our Instagram that’s still live about, ‘What do you want to see in a cooking club?’ Because it’s as much our club as it is everyone else’s at William and Mary.”

Given the feedback they have received, the executive board has a strong vision for what the club will provide its members.

“Our goals are to share food from multiple different cultures and food groups and ethnicities, and we want to educate people on cooking, like cooking skills and dorm cooking, because cooking in a dorm is hard,” Friedel said.

For students new to college and living alone, the mental load of cooking on their own can create a high barrier of access for enjoying homemade food.

“I’m gonna buy the ingredients and the equipment, and then I need to store the equipment somewhere,” club treasurer Michael Swetnam-Burland ’28 said. “I need to clean it. Like, all of that is just kind of a logistical nightmare.”

By creating monthly themes with weekly menus, Club Cooking hopes to cultivate a space where students who are passionate about food can share and learn together. To accomplish such a big goal, the executive board is hard at work nailing down the nitty-gritty details. The first is deciding where to cook their meals.

“We’ve been working with RAs to get access to residence hall kitchens, but the RAs are only half of the approval process,” Friedel said. “The other half is the Community Councils, which haven’t started yet this semester.”

As they wait on approvals for spaces, they have also started working on how to accommodate the nearly 200 people that signed up for their email list at the club fair.

“The turnout was so high that there were people who

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had to stand because there weren’t enough seats for them,” said club meeting coordinator Conner Clark ’28. “So, it was really, really exciting.”

The executive board has settled on a system where members — those who have paid $20 dues — will be able to view monthly menus and sign up for one meeting a month.

This will allow Club Cooking to invite large numbers of people into their spaces without overcrowding meetings or struggling to balance resources. That type of scheduling also comes with benefits for students at the College, a generally busy and highly involved group of people.

“Since it’s monthly meetings, it’s low commitment for people,” Friedel said.

Even if you can only attend once a month, Club Cooking is making sure each meeting is a full experience.

“Members of the club will be able to pick a week based on the menu and the time and come to our meeting and enjoy the food that the exec prepares while learning about, ‘How do I cook this meal? What are some strategies for cooking it?’” Friedel said.

With a schedule set and a space pending, the executive

board’s attention has turned to nailing down their recipes. Whether they’re recent finds or family favorites, Club Cooking is making sure to emphasize diversity and accessibility in the meals they settle on.

“We have a Health and Safety Officer that will help us with alternate menus and making sure our menus have as little allergens as possible,” Swetnam-Burland said.

Avoiding allergens is especially important to Friedel, who is passionate about making sure their recipes are fully available to members.

“Personally, I have a peanut, tree nut, sesame, carrot and pineapple allergy. I grew up with a dairy and a milk and an egg allergy,” Friedel said. “So, I’ve been through it, right? So it’s really important that we are transparent with our menus for that reason.”

Given the huge amount of interest, the club is also working hard to be cognizant of college students’ many different diets.

“Once a month, we’ll have a vegan or vegetarian meal that isn’t some gross substitution, it’s a vegan meal designed to be edible to people,” Friedel said.

In addition to vegan and vegetarian diets, Club Cooking is also trying to learn how to accommodate different religious dietary restrictions.

“None of us are Jewish or Muslim, but we’ve been studying educational videos on Halal and Kosher traditions as well, trying to figure out, how do we match those rules too?” Friedel said. “It’s hard to learn a new, strict religious rule book, but we care a lot about it.”

Maintaining a club culture outside of weekly meetings with rotating participants is also important to the club’s leaders. Clark has ideas he is excited about for promoting unity across the club.

“We can have one meeting per month on Sunken where we don’t bring any food, but then that would allow everyone to be together,” Clark said. “People from different meetings can come meet each other, and the whole club can have one meeting where everyone’s here together. So we can raise the culture of a group of friends.”

Despite their high amount of interest, Club Cooking is always willing to hear from more interested potential members. Email clubcooking@wm.edu to get on its email list, and follow them on Instagram @ wmclubcooking to join in on the exciting events they have got cooking!

FIRST WEEK FESTIVITIES

Student Affairs hosts third annual Student Life Neighborhood Bl ock Party

Thursday, Sept. 4, the College of William and Mary’s Division of Student Affairs hosted the Student Life Neighborhood Block Party. Now in its third year, this annual event encourages students to connect with each other while simultaneously becoming more familiar with the many resources offered within the Sadler Center’s Student Life Walk. In order to create a welcoming and entertaining environment, students not only had the opportunity to explore various Student Life offices but also to grab food and prizes, play games and hop on amusement rides strewn throughout Sadler. The building transformed into a lively carnival-like hub of activity for the night.

For many students, the culinary perks were what led them into the main attraction, with walking tacos, hot dogs, candy and snacks providing an entry point into the larger event and sparking both curiosity and excitement.

“There were a bunch of snacks outside, so we just walked through all of the little stands where you could get different foods and candy,” Kat Blackwood ’27 said.

That food-first approach was deliberate, Director of Student Transition and Engagement Programs Lauren Garrett ’02, M.A. explained.

“Food, food variety, food options, food exploration is usually something that I hone in on for the Block Party,” Garrett said. “I think it is a draw for students who are looking for something that might feel a little bit more like home or maybe feel a bit more unique compared to what they can find in Williamsburg or at the university.”

Alongside the food, amusement rides gave students a chance to unwind. Rock climbing, bumper cars and a spinning carnival ride proved especially popular. Assistant Director of Programming for Student Unions and Engagement Jenna Venable’s goal with such attractions was to allow students to let loose and forget about the stress that comes with starting a new semester.

“I tend to focus on the amusement rides, because I like to focus on what’s interesting to students and will get them out of their rooms,” Venable said. “Especially this year with the Block Party being while classes have already started, it seems that students have gotten into the grind already. I was hoping this would be a great way to get them out and about and just having fun.”

While the Block Party is an excellent way to have fun with current friends, for many students, it serves to create new connections as well.

“It’s great because it brings everyone together in one place with a lot to see and explore,” Blackwood said. “It’s a good thing to have early on in the fall semester, especially for all the freshmen who are still meeting each other. It gives you something to do with your friends, even if you don’t already necessarily know each other super well yet.”

Inside Sadler, Student Life offices offered hands-on activities tied to their respective missions. Students painted rocks with Student

Accountability and Restorative Practices, decorated tote bags with Student Accessibility Services and adopted small plush animals complete with “birth certificates” at the safari-themed Student Success office.

“The offices coordinate the themes themselves, and they’re always so creative,” Venable said.

Sophia Stanley ’29 especially enjoyed crafting with Student Leadership Development.

“They basically had a bunch of succulents in plastic pots along with little stickers that say ‘Depth over Breath,’” Stanley said. “It’s supposed to remind you to take breaks and not go too crazy.”

As a first-year student, the event gave Stanley her first impression of Student Life and its offerings.

“It was cool seeing that they actually care for the students,” Stanley said. “I really enjoyed just in general having the chance to learn about William and Mary and see that they care about us and our mental health.

Participation also came with incentives. Students who checked in at multiple offices could enter a raffle for prizes such as hammocks, Lego sets, Hydro Flasks and even a group dinner with Vice President for Student Affairs Virginia M. Ambler ’88 Ph.D. ’06. Ambler also opened her office to students during the event.

“To hear a student walk away and say, ‘Oh my gosh! That’s such a fun office and such a cool person!’ gives a recognition that there’s more than just a title, more than just a faculty,

but an authentic being,” Garrett said. “This is an event where I really do feel like students and staff come together and we’re really just members of one community.”

Stanley elaborated on her experience with this firsthand.

“We’re already trying to build community, but this gives us an opportunity to meet new people and hang out with each other,” Stanley said. “It also helps us explore the campus a little more, see Sadler and acclimate a little bit to the new school.

This year, the Block Party was placed under the wider “Weeks of Welcome” umbrella, a brand-new campus-wide initiative that aims to promote the College’s Statement of Values. These values include curiosity, excellence, flourishing, integrity, respect and service — principles designed to shape not only academics but everyday campus culture.

“Overarchingly, I think the Block Party is really about a little bit of the variety of the values that we have,” Garrett said. “There’s a smidge of both excellence and belonging. Who can support you when times are tough to make sure you are living and authentically being your best self, and what does it mean to live with integrity and show respect for each other in our community?”

Ultimately, the Block Party provided both new and returning students a chance to step into the semester feeling connected and supported with positive expectations for the year to come. As Venable sees it, this optimism is the best thing to come out of the event.

“I really like hearing students say things like, ‘This is so fun! I didn’t realize I’d get to do something like this in college,’” Venable said. “It’s something along those lines that helps them see the potential, especially in the first two weeks, of what’s to come.”

GRAPHIC BY MICHAEL GABRIEL / THE FLAT HAT

EMMA BEELNER // FLAT HAT VARIETY ASSOC.

KYLIE TOTTEN / THE FLAT HAT

Native American Art Spotlight

Muscarelle Museum of Art expands horizons with new exhibit

LELIA COTTIN-RACK // FLAT HAT VARIETY ASSOC.

e Muscarelle Museum debuted the exhibit “Expanded Horizons: Native American Creativity at the Intersection of Culture and Art” Saturday, June 28.

e exhibit features nearly 60 Native American artworks of varying genre and mediums, including gurative, abstract expressionist and pop art paintings, as well as blown glass sculptures. e exhibit also contains the works of over 35 indigenous artists from across the United States, and now o ers docent-led tours at 2 p.m. every Tuesday-Sunday.

Muscarelle docent Harry Chancey, who leads the weekend tours, is among the museum docents who have conducted in-depth research of the artworks to explain them to the public.

“Some museums have scripts, but not here,” Chancey said. “ ey respect us — we have to go through a certain amount of training, but we all create our own tours. I really enjoy it.”

Chancey’s tour centers on the representation of “tricksters” in Native American mythology and art. In particular, the raven and the coyote are recurring symbols in many pieces of the collection. Indigenous artists use these gures to address, interrogate and confront Western ideals and norms.

One such work is Harry Fonseca’s “Rose on the Half Shell,” which mimics Botticelli’s “ e Birth of Venus.” In the painting, a crudely-painted, nude body stands atop an open clam shell. e head of the gure is not, like in Botticelli’s work, that of a beautiful woman. Rather, Fonseca’s Venus is Coyote, a trickster gure found in traditional Maidu oral literature.

“Fonseca is taking the standard trope of the Birth of Venus, and he’s giving it back to us on a half shell,” Chancey said.

“We have ‘the trickster’ leading us out of ignorance and into a new way of thinking — expanding what we think about what we know.”

During his tour, Chancey showed the crowd a picture of Margaret Burrough’s “Black Venus,” which is not currently on display, but is part of the Muscarelle’s permanent collection. By reclaiming icons of Western art, these artists are pushing their audience to think beyond their conceptions of traditional beauty.

“ is, too, is another way of saying:

we see Botticelli’s Venus, and we think there are other ways of seeing beauty standards,” Chancey said. Chancey’s tour featured several other socially-charged works, including a large, oddly-shaped canvas titled “Autobiogra tipi,” by multimedia artist Tom Poolaw. Chancey challenged his audience to guess what the shape of the canvas might represent. One audience member surmised that the shape was an axe head. It, in fact, was not. “ is is a tipi shape,” Chancey said. is is what you would cut out of hide if you were in the wild. e purpose of the opening on top is for the smoke to exhaust, and the shape would be supported by poles radiating from the center core. e triangle part would make a triangular tent- ap.”

By painting his “Autobiogra tipi” on a tipi-shaped canvas, Chancey explained that Poolaw is reclaiming Western “art norms” on his own terms, and re ecting them back to the unsuspecting audience.

Poolaw’s canvas is split horizontally in two. e left side is white, decorated with black illustrations and symbols, including his daughter’s birth, song lyrics, his favourite restaurant — e Mont — and a long string of numbers that include basketball scores, passwords and his social security number. is portion of Poolaw’s work is a nod to the traditions of his Kiowa ancestors, who decorated the exteriors of their tipis with war deeds and personal family history.

The other half of the canvas is black, save for an indistinct grey form in the middle — what looks like a wheel on top of a stool. Chancey said this grey piece represents famed conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp’s 1951 “Bicycle Wheel” sculpture. With this inclusion, Poolaw confronts the western conceptual art movement.

“He’s saying, ‘We get conceptual art. You can’t leave us out any longer, we can be part of that world,’” Chancey said. Chancey explained leading this particular tour was a challenge at the start. Previously at the Muscarelle, he led 38 tours of the “Michelangelo: e Genesis of the Sistine” exhibit and founded the lecture series “Art in the Afternoon,” which featured artists from

the Hudson River Art School to Edgar Degas. However, this exhibit was a dramatic shift from his expertise in the Western art canon.

“When I first looked at the pieces, I thought: You don’t know anything about any of this, and you’ve got to do some research,” Chancey said. “So I spent dozens of hours researching and getting to the bottom of the pieces that drew my attention. I learned the meaning behind the works, so that I could help people sort of see the idea of ‘Expanded Horizons.’”

For gallery monitor Gigi Spector ’27, watching the exhibit evolve has been a rich experience.

“I was here when they started setting up,” Spector said. “It was exciting to get new artwork, and to see stu getting moved around. ey weren’t sure which rooms they were going to put certain works in yet, so at rst a lot of art was propped on the oor, against the walls.”

Now, working in the nished exhibit, she too learns from the docent tours.

“I de nitely learn more about the exhibits, because the stu that he says is di erent from the stu on the plaques,” Spector said.

Spector noted how Chancey’s insights, particularly on the Coyote piece, were interesting.

“It just made me think about the piece a lot more and I really like how he ties a thread throughout the work and focuses on trickster spirits,” Spector said.

Visitors were also impressed by Chancey’s presentation. The half-dozen audience members in attendance applauded at the conclusion of the tour. One couple explained that they had just moved from Montana with a trailer full of indigenous art. With a wink, Chancey asked if they’d consider donating to the collection.

For now, rest assured, there’s plenty to go see. e “Expanded Horizons” exhibit is open during regular museum hours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. TuesdaySaturday and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, until Oct. 13. Visit https://muscarelle. wm.edu/exhibition/expandedhorizons-native-american-creativity-atthe-intersection-of-culture-and-art/ for more details.

MATCHA, TOTE BAG, FEMINIST LITERATURE

Grab your matcha, tote bag and feminist literature. Saturday, Sept. 6, students at the College of William and Mary gathered on the Sunken Garden for a “performative male” contest.

An anonymous user on student social media platform YikYak spurred the informal event. They announced the contest’s time and place, as well as the prize for the winner: a $50 Starbucks gift card. Around 100 students, mostly women, attended the contest.

Competitor Owen Fleitas ’29 described his perception of the concept of the “performative male,” which has gone viral in recent weeks. The trend has become associated with certain alternative fashions and engaging with music, literature and even beverages typically associated with women.

“I think a performative male is a guy who goes about presenting himself and his interests for the sole purpose of getting attention from a woman,” Fleitas said. “He involves himself in causes that don’t speak to him and that he does only for the sake of sexual validation.”

Competitor Hall Blackwood ’29 agreed that performative males change their personalities to appeal to women.

“Someone who acts not like themselves in order to find someone, you know, like a date,” Blackwood said.

Competitor William McCann ’26 added the performative feminist activism associated with the archetype.

“I would define a performative male as someone who, perhaps insincerely, believes in or engages in a lot of causes and interests that are typically seen as female-led, or femaledominated,” McCann said.

The contestants lined up in front of the crowd to compete. They each showcased their outfits and the items they brought, trying to make the case that they were the most deserving to win.

A common theme of the competitors’ personas was menstrual advocacy. When Blackwood presented himself, someone in the crowd yelled that they were starting their period. He quickly sprang into action, dropping his tote bag and kneeling to present the woman with a feminine hygiene product. Blackwood’s actions drew applause from the crowd. In another instance, one of the performative males threw a box of tampons into the crowd.

Blackwood described how his enjoyment of acting inspired him to compete.

“I do theater a lot. So, I like playing characters, and for me, this is a form of character,” Blackwood said.

When asked about his performance, Blackwood thought that the Sylvia Plath book and the office plant that he brought helped elevate him.

Meanwhile, Fleitas decided to compete

after seeing the YikYak post, and was confident he would do well.

“I saw the post on YikYak, and I was thinking I had this shit in the bag,” Fleitas said. “Like, I had this whole vinyl collection of just female artists and not even on purpose.”

McCann showed up to the event with less serious confidence.

“I saw a trending post on YikYak, and I kind of jokingly posted on my Instagram story, ‘Hey guys, should I pull up to this?’” McCann said.

He also described his strategy coming into the event.

“I mainly just held up objects that I had and said, ‘I hate periods,’ which gets the job done in some cases,” McCann said. “I love women.”

AG Yurkutat ’29 came to watch the event. They gave their opinion on the performative male contest.

“I think the whole contest is about recognizing that women want to be seen and respected,” Yurkutat said. “And also making fun of the people who turn to consumerism

as a way to attract women instead of being authentic and caring individuals.”

Beyond the deeper social commentary, Yurkutat thought the event was a fun time.

“Everyone got to do a little spiel when they participated about their so-called feelings about women, and made some exaggerated remarks about being anti-consumerist, thrifting everything and drinking matcha and then spitting it out because, again, the whole point of a performative man is that they’re not actually authentic,” Yurkutat said.

Fleitas thought there was a lesson everyone could take away from the competition.

“Love women, and do it just for the sake of it,” Fleitas said.

The audience chose the winner by crowding around the performative male they thought was the best. Yurkutat helped count the different groups. After a few minutes, Sam Rose ’29 was crowned the winner. It was unclear whether or not they received the promised $50 dollar Starbucks gift card.

Students Gather on Sunken Garden for Performative Male contest

CAROLYN REID / THE FLAT HAT

GRAPHIC BY DAVID OMITOGUN / THE FLAT HAT

CAROLYN REID / THE FLAT HAT

COURTESY PHOTO / THE MUSCARELLE

sports

All Chris Norris ’95 wanted was a clean first half.

Over the previous two weeks, the William and Mary men’s soccer head coach watched the Tribe (02-2, 0-0 CAA) quickly fall behind in each of its three contests, draining itself of confidence and expending its energy while searching for equalizers. At Navy (1-13, 0-0 Patriot), it conceded a goal in the 35th minute; against Rutgers (3-1-1, 0-0 Big 10), it allowed one in the 12th; at Campbell (2-1-1, 1-0 CAA), it found itself down 1-0 less than 90 seconds after kickoff. Going into William and Mary’s Saturday, Sept. 6, home matchup against Maryland, Baltimore County (4-0-1, 0-0 America East), Norris’ gameplan emphasized one thing — avoiding a deficit.

“The biggest thing for us was trying to get through the first half without putting ourselves in a hole,” Norris said. “We had done that for our first three games, and we wanted to do everything that we could to make sure that we got a shutout. Obviously, if we could get a lead, like we ended up getting, that would be great, but our primary goal was to make sure that we didn’t give anything away in the first 45 minutes. We were happy with that.”

Not only did the Tribe fulfill their coach’s directive, they exceeded his expectations. Behind two early saves from junior goalkeeper Ryan Eapen, William and Mary kept the Retrievers off the scoreboard in the first half, and a 43rd-minute goal by senior forward Sam Delgado sent the Green and Gold into the locker room with its first advantage of the season. Although UMBC evened the score in the 60th minute after graduate student forward Andres Javitt rocketed a free kick past Eapen’s fingertips, the Tribe’s 1-1 draw against the undefeated Retrievers satisfied Norris and marked its best result of the 2025 campaign.

“Obviously, UMBC’s a good team, undefeated still in the season, and they scored a great free kick,” Norris said. “But I thought we responded well in the second half after being equalized and had some good moments, could have potentially won it. I thought it was a good college

soccer game.”

The tie was made all the more impressive by the context in which the Tribe claimed it. It was a sweltering afternoon at Martin Family Field — the temperature reached 91 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity hovered around 50%. Fans and players alike felt the effects of the heat, as a number of spectators huddled in the shade provided by the press box while William and Mary wrestled with injury and fatigue issues that were exacerbated by the inhospitable sun. The battle was one of attrition, where stamina proved more valuable than strength.

Perhaps the most resilient player on the field was Delgado. The visitors applied a methodical pressure that produced two corner kicks and a shot in the game’s first five minutes, but the hosts fired back with several chances of their own. In the 17th minute, senior forward Lucas Caldas received a cross in the penalty box, taking a touch off his chest before being swallowed up by the UMBC defense. The opportunity was the Tribe’s most promising up to that point. However, Caldas soon left the game due to injury, shifting much of the team’s offensive burden onto the shoulders of Delgado.

The veteran turned in one of the best performances of his season, rarely standing still, never leaving the field, and helping to create and sustain many of the Tribe’s attacking chances. It did not take long for his perseverance to pay off. As the clock ticked towards halftime, senior midfielder Diogo Branco flipped a pass over a wall of Retrievers. Delgado, charging from the left side of the box, controlled the ball, approached the goal, and deposited a ground-bound shot past UMBC senior keeper Emigdio Lopez. His work didn’t end there: in the 57th minute, he launched a close-quarters strike at the crossbar, nearly scoring again.

Norris praised the intensity displayed by Delgado, who attempted a team-high three shots on the day. According to the Tribe coach, the game’s conditions, adverse for most players, were beneficial to Delgado, as he tapped into his considerable energy reserves to outlast his competitors.

“This is the kind of game where Sam thrives,” Norris said. “One of his greatest qualities is his fitness, and I think he was able to really use that to his advantage. On a day where a lot of people were struggling because of the heat and the humidity, you could see that he was active throughout the 90 minutes. It got him a goal. It got him some of our best moments in the second half, where he could have potentially scored. He hit the crossbar and then had another shot blocked close in.”

William and Mary’s offense was backed up by an improved defensive effort. Rutgers junior midfielder Joschi Schelb recorded a hat trick in the first 21 minutes of the Tribe’s Monday, Sept. 1 meeting with the Scarlet Knights, facing little resistance on two of his goals and burying the Green and Gold before the first half ended. Norris said William and Mary “didn’t take care of the details that we needed to defensively” against Rutgers,

making technical and positional mistakes that allowed its opponents to cruise to victory.

The Tribe was much more solid during Saturday’s opening period. Although William and Mary was not perfect — the Retrievers generated multiple dangerous chances, including a shot in the 41st minute that clanged off the left post, prompting a gasp of anxiety from the home crowd — it limited its opponents’ clean looks. Rutgers attempted eight shots during the first half of its game against William and Mary. UMBC attempted just three.

Norris largely attributed his squad’s showing to the performance of its midfielders, who slowed UMBC’s transition opportunities, maintained possession and rarely committed consequential turnovers.

“Being more solid in the back was critical,” Norris said. “[We] got our midfield to do a really good job at trying to help slow transition moments, get winning second balls, and doing a good job when we had attacking transition of breaking us out and not putting us in positions where we win the ball and then we immediately turn it back over and have to defend in a tough moment.”

Norris also gave credit to a trio of defenders who he said helped preserve the integrity of the Tribe backline: senior Bryce Smith and freshmen Michael DiOrio and Damen Burney. The latter two played 21 minutes each.

“We played Bryce Smith 90 minutes at left center back,” Norris said. “He had been coming off the bench, mostly playing as a left back for us, and I thought he was one of our best players today and really helped us solidify things in the back. Some of the young guys came on, Michael DiOrio and Damen Burney, freshmen. For Damen, today was his first minutes of the regular season, and those guys stepped up and did a great job as well.”

Eapen, getting his second consecutive start in goal, received a strong review from Norris after the Rutgers game. The Tribe coach was more measured in his praise Saturday, as several of Eapen’s goal kicks went awry, but Norris nevertheless said the junior did an effective job blocking shots when the Tribe’s defense faltered. Eapen finished the game with one goal allowed against four saves, two of which came in the first 20 minutes and the other two of which came in the last 15 minutes.

“He’s a big presence in there,” Norris said. “He’s a good shot-stopper. When there are moments the other team gets to serve or there’s a scrambling moment, he does well getting from post to post, giving us a chance to keep the ball out, even in moments where our defending maybe isn’t as good as it needs to be.”

Armed with a 1-0 lead, William and Mary entered halftime in position to secure its first win of the year. However, the Retrievers had other plans. After it created a 48th-minute threat that was nullified by an offside call, UMBC got a break in the 60th minute when a Tribe foul gifted Javitt a free kick just outside the penalty area. The striker hammered the ball over the William and Mary wall and blew it past Eapen with pinpoint accuracy,

tying the game with an authoritative shot into the goal’s top left corner. Although the Tribe could have refrained from fouling Javitt, they also had little recourse against his impressive set piece.

“The guy scored a pretty spectacular free kick, and sometimes that’s gonna happen against you,” Norris said.

The Tribe continued pressing for the remainder of the game, almost scoring on Delgado’s shot deflected by the crossbar, but to no avail. A 66th-minute breakaway shot from Javitt nearly gave him another goal and spoiled the afternoon, but it just missed the left post, and the whistle blew on the 90th minute with the teams deadlocked at one.

Norris was content with his squad’s performance despite the equalizer it allowed, although he noted the Tribe needs to get more comfortable when holding a lead.

“I think any time that you go ahead in a game, that gives you some confidence,” Norris said. “We haven’t been ahead yet this season, so to be in that position was a little new for us. I think we were a little nervy to start the second half, but we had certainly set out with the intention of trying to get a second goal and not just playing to try to protect the 1-0 lead. I thought we did a good job overall.”

William and Mary returns to the field Saturday, Sept. 13, traveling to Wilmington, N.C.’s UNCW Soccer Stadium to take on conference rival North Carolina Wilmington (0-2-1, 0-1 CAA). The Tribe currently sits in a three way tie for last in the Coastal Athletic Association South after having lost to Campbell Aug. 29. Its upcoming slate will be crucial in deciding its positioning for the conference tournament, which features the top three teams in both divisions.

SYDNEY WITWER

FLAT HAT SPORTS ASSOC.

Sunday, Sept. 7, William and Mary field hockey (1-3, 0-0 CAA) recorded its first win of the season, defeating Lafayette (3-1, 0-0 Patriot) 2-1 at Busch Field in Williamsburg, Va. After a mostly scoreless match, Lafayette senior forward Catalina Rubel gave the Panthers the lead with less than seven minutes left in the game, tapping a close-quarters shot past sophomore goalkeeper Emma Cari. The Tribe was down to its last legs, but junior forward Josie Mae Gruendel singlehandedly mounted a frantic comeback, scoring two goals in the final 2 minutes, 4 seconds and catapulting William and Mary to victory.

Gruendel’s scores were the Tribe’s

first of the campaign. William and Mary lost its opening three matches by a combined margin of 19-0, improving with every game but entering Sunday’s contest with a record of 0-3. For the 4 minutes, 51 seconds following Rubel’s goal, it seemed as though the Green and Gold would suffer another frustrating defeat, but Gruendel led the Tribe to an impressive upset of the formerly-unbeaten Lafayette, the defending Patriot League champion.

After taking a penalty corner in the 57th minute, the veteran hovered around the baseline as junior defender and midfielder Mackinzie Brown fired in a pass from the top of the shooting circle. The ball trickled under the stick of a Lafayette defender, and Gruendel prepared a shot. Panthers senior goalkeeper Raffi Fragomeni failed to

intercept the pass, allowing Gruendel to slap it in and tie the game at 1-1. 102 seconds later, she scored from the same spot in the same situation, taking advantage of a penalty corner to put the Tribe in the lead for good. Her brace was the first of her career and William and Mary’s first since Kellen Richbourg ’25 accomplished the feat last season.

William and Mary head field hockey coach Tess Ellis credited the victory to the hard work and motivation of her players, saying their trust in themselves and their game plan powered them to an unlikely comeback.

“I really don’t think it’s about what the coach says prior to a game that motivates them to win,” Ellis said. “I think it’s more about the hard work you put in leading up to a game and if you truly believe in your game plan and your ability on that given day. This is what truly motivates you to win in the last dying 30 seconds of the game.”

During its slow start to the season, William and Mary had allowed opponents to attempt an average of 24.3 shots per game while failing to generate clean looks itself. The Tribe was outshot by a combined 73-10 over its first three games, but according to Ellis, William and Mary put its previous struggles in the rear-view mirror in its match against Lafayette.

“You try not to think too much about what the scores were in previous games,” Ellis said. “It’s more about being present in the game that we’re taking on.”

The Tribe’s mindset led to

improved results, as the Green and Gold attempted eight shots to the Panthers’ 11. Five of them came in the frenzied final stretch, but William and Mary also created scoring chances before the fourth period — in the 32nd minute, Brown and Gruendel both attempted powerful shots after a penalty corner, nearly taking the lead. On the afternoon, the pair combined for six of the Tribe’s eight shots. William and Mary also got strong performances from Cari and junior goalkeeper Alexandra de Jesus, both of whom played 30 minutes. De Jesus started the game and manned the goal for the first half, allowing zero goals and making three saves, while Cari took over at halftime, allowing one goal and making two saves. It was Cari’s longest appearance of the season, while de Jesus continued her strong campaign. The upperclassman, starting for the first time in her career,

has now made 34 saves on the year, the fourth-highest mark in Division I. Attempting to extend its winning streak, the Tribe next takes the field Friday, Sept. 12, against No. 5 Duke (2-2, 0-0 ACC), which boasts victories over No. 4 Maryland (2-2, 0-0 Big 10) and American (1-2, 0-0 AEC), the latter of which beat William and Mary 10-0. The Blue Devils also fell to No. 1 Northwestern (4-0, 0-0 Big 10) by just one goal.

The matchup will be the Tribe’s most difficult of the season. However, Ellis is optimistic that the confidence instilled in her team by its win over Lafayette will carry over to future games.

“It’s always good to get your first win under your belt,” Ellis said. “It gives the team a vote of confidence that all the hard stuff that they’ve been working on at practice and in previous games has paid off.”

RICHARD CHILDRESS / THE FLAT HAT Junior defender Evan Rabush elevates and wins a header.

KIMBERLY McCANN/ THE FLAT HAT

The Tribe is back in action on Saturday when it travels to face No. 5 Duke, its highest ranked opponent.

RICHARD CHILDRESS/ THE FLAT HAT

The Tribe was happy with the draw after a rough start.

KIMBERLY McCANN/ THE FLAT HAT

Josie Mae Grundel ʻs pair of goals gave William and Mary the edge over Lafayette on Sunday.

sports

Punt block, quarterback scrambles, interception seal dramatic Tribe victory William and Mary overcomes delays, rides big second half to win

In response, Hughes led William and Mary on a fiveplay, 70-yard drive during which he completed two passes of 23 or more yards, including a touchdown strike to graduate student receiver Deven Thompson. However, the Tribe was unable to sustain its momentum, surrendering a field goal before going three-and-out on its final possession of the half. An uneasy mood hung over Zable Stadium as William and Mary jogged into its locker room trailing 17-7.

At the break, the Tribe had accumulated 110 yards to Maine’s 172, but perhaps more concerningly, it had been beaten in the margins for the third half in a row. After the Tribe’s loss to Furman, London spoke of the team’s need to improve its attention to detail. Through the first two quarters of the Maine game, the Tribe did not quite fulfill London’s directive, committing a special teams blunder and giving away 37 costly penalty yards. William and Mary also failed to convert a third down while allowing the Black Bears to convert three fourth downs.

However, the second half proved to be the cleanest display of football the Tribe has put on this season. Sparked by sophomore linebacker Stephon Hicks’ punt block, which gave the Green and Gold a short field and allowed it to record a touchdown on its first drive of the half, William and Mary eliminated nearly all of the mistakes it had made earlier in the day. The Tribe had struggled on special teams all season, and it was plays like the block that London said turned the game in William and Mary’s favor.

“Our guys [did] the things necessary to win the game: block a punt,” London said. “You block a punt, your odds of winning a game are very high [with] the element of continuing to do the technical things that are going to allow us to be successful.”

After it emerged from the locker room, the Tribe was called for just one penalty, scored touchdowns on three of its four drives and converted 67% of its third downs. Although London’s group still wasn’t perfect — on the last drive of the third quarter, a holding call nullified a fourthdown sack and allowed Maine to find the end zone — the coach was greatly encouraged by their performance.

“Things weren’t happening the way we wanted to happen in the first half, but [we] settled down and just identified those things that can help us move the ball,” London said. “[Hughes] did a fantastic job of orchestrating that in the second half. Made a lot of corrections. One of the things was only having three penalties. That’s been our Achilles’ heel for a while, having too many penalties that would kill drives. So we minimized that to [give us] an opportunity to let drives continue on. We had individual players make plays, we had group effort.”

Trailing 24-21, a sloppy possession at the beginning of the fourth quarter nearly ended in catastrophe for William and Mary, as a trick play went wrong and Hughes was forced to jump on a fumble. On the subsequent drive, Maine marched down the field, settling for a field goal after being stonewalled by the Green and Gold at the goal line. Nevertheless, the Tribe found itself down 27-21 with 7:19 left on the clock despite its strong half.

With the game on the line, Hughes proceeded to rip off his electrifying runs, propelling his team to a 28-27 advantage and draining four minutes away in the process. Against Furman, William and Mary was given a number of lategame scoring opportunities, but the Tribe frittered them away with self-inflicted mistakes and penalties. This time, William and Mary’s signal-caller was singularly focused on delivering in the clutch.

“We finished,” Hughes said. “That was the emphasis going into this week. Last week, it was pretty tough. We were up late, and we couldn’t finish. This week, that’s all it was about. We didn’t have the turnovers, we didn’t have the penalties late, we were able to muscle out drives, finish them. It was tough, gritty.”

The clock read 2:28 when Peevy’s final pass of the game was batted into the air by Banbury, who finished the game with a career-high 16 tackles and was named the Coastal Athletic Association Defensive Player of the Week, and was intercepted by Jones. London praised the teamwork of Banbury, Jones and redshirt freshman defensive lineman Brady Echols, whose pressure contributed to Peevy’s errant throw.

“We were doing a stunt,” London said. “The defensive lineman comes around, puts his hands in the throwing lane

and the quarterback puts air underneath the ball because he doesn’t want the ball knocked down. Luke Banbury does a great job going to the curl, outside route. He tips the ball, and then Jalen Jones, because he’s running to the ball when it’s in the air, he catches it for an interception and ends the game. We’re going to have to continue to keep doing things where it’s not just about one player, it’s about the multitude of players that are up front, that are in the secondary, that are in the linebacker core, special teams or whatever it may be.”

The game wasn’t quite over when Jones picked off Peevy, as the Tribe was tasked with the remaining 2:28 off the clock, but five consecutive rushes from Raymond forced Maine to use the last of its timeouts. With 1:14 left, William and Mary took two knees and began to celebrate.

“That last drive, when we were trying to kill the clock, end the game, not give the ball back — we finished,” Hughes said. “That was the emphasis all week, and that’s what we improved on.”

The William and Mary rushing offense was largely ineffective throughout the game, averaging 3.2 yards a carry on 39 attempts, but the Tribe found success behind Hughes’ arm. On the day, Hughes outdueled his counterpart through the air, finishing with 129 passing yards to Peevy’s 97. Production was distributed almost evenly throughout the receiver room, with sophomore wide receiver Garrett Robertson, junior tight end Sean McElwain, senior wide receiver Isaiah Lemmond and Thompson all racking up more than 20 passing yards. In the face of significant adversity, William and Mary found a way to grind out 28 points.

“It was a great learning lesson for us,” London said. “We talked about fate whispering to the warrior, ‘You cannot handle the storm,’ and the warrior whispered back, ‘I am the storm.’”

Saturday, Sept. 13, William and Mary continues its campaign with its most difficult test of the season, taking on Virginia (1-1, 0-0, ACC) at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Va. London, who coached the Cavaliers from 2010 to 2015, still watches the program from afar, but he says he’s singularly focused on preparing his players for a win, undistracted by any personal connections.

“There are humanistic elements to it, but we’re football coaches, and we’re charged with coaching our players and providing them with experiences where they can experience an opportunity to win on that stage,” London said. “I’ve been here before, and we’ve played [Football Bowl Subdivision] teams and had some success as a [Football Championship Subdivision] school, but all that matters is what happens on Saturday.”

JONAH PETERS / THE FLAT HAT

Junior wide receiver Quinn Devlin (83) celebrates with his teammates minutes after an interception gave William and Mary its ﬁrst victory of the young season.

JONAH PETERS / THE FLAT HAT

William and Mary students cheer on the Tribe after lightning left the area and play resumed. An announced 8,229 fans attended the game, but rain drove many away.

JONAH PETERS / THE FLAT HAT

Junior quarterback Tyler Hughes (6), redshirt freshman punter Carter Boyd (94) and sophomore defensive lineman Breyden Byrd (91) battle through the rain during the fourth quarter of William and Maryʼs 28-27 win over conference foe Maine.