In ancient Greece, athletes competed in events for a chance at glory, fame and prestige. In 2024 at Baylor University, Greek life competes in intramural sports with the same goals.
Every year fraternities and sororities put together teams to compete in the sports Baylor has to offer through intramurals. For each win, the fraternity or sorority is awarded a certain number of points and the chapter with the most points at the end of the year wins the intramural title.
This gives each intramural sport more meaning. From ping pong to football, each team will likely face members of Greek Life.
Intramurals are meant to be a place to have fun in a sport with some friendly competition. But make no mistake, while chapters enter to have fun, they also ultimately want to win.
Alpha Tau Omega Intramural Chair Ryan Tompkins, a senior from Coppell, says the chapter aims to balance fun and competitiveness throughout every sport they participate in.
“For a major sport, we probably have eight teams — four of those teams were made with the intent of ‘Hey I just want to play with my house’ or ‘I just want to play with these guys,’” Tompkins said. “Then we have four teams made with a little more strategy. These are all pretty competitive guys, they bring a more competitive attitude.”
The chapters need to do their due diligence when putting together a roster. Often, tryouts are held to put forth the best team possible. Tompkins explained how those decisions are made.
“For those major sports we will most likely have a tryout,” Tompkins said. “I’m a 21-year-old college student putting together teams, but those tryouts help at least a little bit.”
Sometimes two teams from the same chapter are matched up against one another. Similarly to a Big 12 rivalry, there’s something special on the line whenever a fraternity or sorority gets matched up.
