Student-Athletes Reflect on

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favorite field hockey tradition is Teamsgiving, which takes place right before fall break at the end of the field hockey season. Teamsgiving is a potluck where teammates and coaches bring a dish they enjoy cooking and hand out paper plate awards to the team based on inside jokes they’ve formed over the season. “The food is really good. I know we have some good chefs on our team,” Schreiber said. More importantly, it’s her favorite tradition because it’s the last time all her teammates and coaches are together as a team for the season.

Soccer: The women’s and men’s soccer teams have a tight bond — in the past, they’ve thrown a wedding, a prom, and a dress-up-as-decades night together. Fourth-year Belle Smith’s favorite tradition is prom, which happens in the spring. Athletes on the men’s and women’s teams put on their favorite formal attire or go thrifting to find an outfit. To Smith, it reaffirms athletes’ love of soccer during the offseason. “It’s like getting back together and bonding over soccer again,” she said. “Everyone who quit is still invited to come.”

Winter Sports

Basketball: One of the first tasks second-year Jaedyn O’Reilly was assigned during her first season on the team was to read The Hard Hat: 21 Ways to be a Great Teammate by Jon Gordon. Each week during the season, one teammate is awarded the hard hat, which is a white hard hat that team members write on. “Whoever gets the hard hat [that week] adds a word or phrase that explains why the next person deserves it,” O’Reilly said. “By the end of the season, the hard hat is covered with different ways our team have been good teammates to each other.”

The men’s basketball team sticks with traditions on game day. Ten minutes before tipoff, the team huddles together to discuss and finalize their game plan. All day before the gane, they wear their team tracksuits. “We all love game day,” said second-year Adel Dibael. “Wearing our sacred track suits on game day makes us feel very special and a part of something bigger.”

Swim and dive: This year’s swim and dive Friendsgiving was done before conferences instead of over fall break. Friendsgiving, similar to field hockey’s Teamsgiving, is a team-wide potluck dinner that happens each year at Swim House. Secondyear Anika Kennedy explained that each teammate must bring either an appetizer, an entrée, or a dessert to the event.

Spring Sports

Tennis: Each year, the men’s and women’s tennis teams celebrate Halloween together. “One of the most memorable years was when half of us dressed up as Average Joe’s and the other half as Globo Gym, the two rival teams in the movie Dodgeball,” recalled fourth-year James Dill. A tradition Dill mentioned was the memorable quotes written throughout the years on the locker room chalkboard. “One of my favorite items is a drawing of a wizard, who is described as being ‘ashamed of his squib (non-magical) son.’”

Lacrosse: As explained by second-years Maya Blevins, Kaela Wilson, and Aidan Loh, each year the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams come together for a country-themed wedding. Everyone dresses up for the occasion, and teammates are assigned characters — a bride and groom, ring bearers, bridesmaids, a maid of honor, a best man, the congregation, and, of course, an officiator. There is even a wedding cake at the end to celebrate the marriage.

Baseball: The baseball team calls itself “The Mules.” Why mules? Because mules can’t breed. “Our team is known to have been very bad in the past,” said second-year Jay Aghanya. Apparently, many years ago, a coach from a school in the North Coast Athletic Conference conference said that Oberlin’s baseball team was “so bad that they shouldn’t be able to reproduce.” The team now makes a joke of it. “We would say we’re the mules so we don’t have any bad generations in the future,” said Aghanya.

Softball: Before each game, the team huddles in a circle around some members in the middle to do the Yeo Baby cheer: “Can I get a yeo? Can I get a yeo baby? Can I get a yeo baby yeo baby yeo!” “It’s the thing that gets us hyped up for the game, gets us into a good headspace, and hopefully intimidates the opponent a little bit,” said third-year Kathyrn Beeman.

Track and field: The track and field team also does the Yeo Baby cheer during their meets. “Every other [competing] team hates us for it,” said second-year Jon Dromlewicz. With a large team, the cheer can become extremely loud when there are groups of Obies scattered around the track. Dromlewicz clarified that Yeo Baby is usually done during relays and finals toward the end of the race as a final encouragement to those competing.

Club Sports

Rugby: “We have a special naming process for the rookies each semester … we always have to call each other by our nicknames or you have to do a push-up,” said second-year Gillian Shin. For the Rhinos, the women and trans rugby team, each teammate is given a nickname when they first join. How they come up with the names is very secretive, but nicknames are unanimously agreed upon by the team.

Frisbee: A yearly tradition between the Preying Manti and the Flying Horsecows is Flat Crawl. Second-year Alea Strasser explained that in Flat Crawl, two to three people are tied to each other to compete in three- or four-legged races from one house to the next, and the first group that gets to the last house wins the game. “It helps form friendships between the teams,” Strasser said. At this year’s Flat Crawl, Strasser and her friend won second place.

Student-Athletes Reflect on Women’s History Month

Bette Imhoff looks to pass the ball on Bailey Field. Courtesy of Lucas Draper

River Schiff

Senior Staff Writer

Women of color, especially Black women, continually face discrimination in the sports world. Women’s History Month is a reminder that we need to celebrate the diversity and beauty of womanhood in athletics.

Fourth-year captain of women’s lacrosse Bette Imhoff spoke on her experience being a Black woman in a predominantly white sport.

“Growing up in a predominantly white area, I was always the only Black girl on the team,” she said. “Joining a team, in the beginning, was tough because I was already distinguished as being different and an outsider, so I had to find a way to be accepted. They didn’t know me. I didn’t look like them. I was probably one of the first Black people they have seen. Therefore, they wouldn’t pass me the ball or ask me to be their partner during warmups.”

Despite these struggles, Imhoff thinks the extra barriers that she had to endure have made her a stronger, more empowered athlete.

“At a young age, I learned that I had to get my teammates’ respect before they would allow me to play,” she said. “Sports give athletes a safe space. However, I had to create that safeness for myself — it wasn’t just given to me. Sports have allowed me to become self-empowered and prideful of being Black and a woman.”

In athletics, the extra steps required of underrepresented women inform the work that’s yet to be done. Imhoff highlights a possible solution for the lack of diversity in lacrosse, specifically, that children of all backgrounds should be able to get a sports education.

“Economically speaking, lacrosse is an expensive sport to play because of the pricey equipment and thus, excludes a majority of people from participating,” she said.

Third-year Solace Porter, who is also on the women’s lacrosse team, is thankful for the opportunity that Oberlin Athletics has given her to build her self-confidence and sense of worth.

“Being POC in a majority white space, there is no one to look up to that you can relate to, and even in spaces like Oberlin where [diversity, equity, and inclusion] is supposed to be really important, there is still a cultural difference,” Porter wrote in an email to the Review. “But despite all this, having the Black Student-Athlete Group as a resource of like-minded and talented Black athletes is great. I have formed connections with former Black Oberlin athletes who have assisted me in securing internships, and I have been offered mentorship from current athletes.”

According to Porter, it is imperative that Oberlin students become more active in their support for Black students, especially Black women whose unique experiences often get ignored or go unsaid.

“As one of the few Black lacrosse players, I not only play lacrosse because I love the sport, but I play for young girls who look like me and who deserve the opportunity to play,” she wrote.

Second-year women’s lacrosse player Emilie Jones thinks that the sense of togetherness among a community of strong women is of the utmost importance. As a white athlete, she acknowledges the privilege of her experience as a white person in sports — having been able to transcend certain stereotypes and create confidence for herself without the scrutiny of fellow women.

“Sports gave me a sense of confidence and empowerment, and a community who defied that timid aspect that is sometimes pushed onto women,” Jones said. “Being in athletics gives me so much power and confidence, and has made me a stronger, better person, more myself than I ever had been.”