The intramural soccer team Applied Math warms up on the field behind the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center. The team members pass a ball back and forth, each wearing a simple white T-shirt as his uniform. But one player in particular stands out: With his thinning white hair, Professor of Applied Mathematics Basilis Gidas can easily be distinguished from his teammates, who are mostly undergrads from the department.
Gidas may seem an unconventional teammate, but he is one of the many professors, staff members and graduate students at Brown who compete alongside — and against — undergrads in intramural sports.
Unlike varsity and club teams, intramural teams do not belong to conferences or leagues that compete in regional or national tournaments, only playing against other University teams on campus. With 305 teams in 13 different sports, intramural athletics provide a less competitive outlet for faculty, students and staff to leave behind the stress of the classroom and the workplace.
"I've always viewed intramurals as something of a recreational outlet," said Intramural and Facility Coordinator Diane Yee. "School is more than education. It is about community — bringing students and staff together."
Yee, who also participates in intramural football and softball at Brown, oversees the 1,687 members of the Brown community who play intramural sports — including 167 faculty and staff members and 482 grad students.
Linda Chernak GS, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in geological sciences, has been playing for the department's Rolling Stones soccer and softball teams since her first year at Brown.
"Intramural sports gives us something to do other than research," Chernak said. "It is a nice break."
Chernak added that she enjoys playing with her department's faculty members. "It is nice to see our professors in a different light," she said.
Rachael Mazzella '12 said she understands why grad students would want to participate in intramurals. As captain of the Synapsed, an intramural soccer team, Mazzella has frequently played against grad students.
"I love playing intramural soccer, and if I were three years older, I would want to have the opportunity to do it still," she said. "It's fun for everyone."
The only downside, Mazzella said, is the higher skill level of some of the grad students.
"I wish it was a more equal distribution of grad students and undergrads, but I wouldn't really say that it is a big deal," she said. "We all still have fun."
Luiz Valente PhD'83, associate professor of Portuguese and Brazilian studies, has been a dedicated intramural athlete since 1987, when he joined the Eulers — pronounced "Oilers" — a hockey team started by physics graduate students and named after the mathematician Leonhard Euler.
Growing up in Brazil, Valente played volleyball and soccer for most of his life and did not discover his love for hockey until he was an undergrad at Bowdoin College. "Everyone at Bowdoin played hockey," he said.
Valente, who has served as the Eulers' team captain and also as a faculty adviser to Brown's varsity hockey team, said hockey is one of those sports that "once you start playing it, you never want to stop."
The Eulers have included a mix of faculty and students from disciplines as varied as music, philosophy and chemistry — as well as some of Valente's students.
"Once you are on the ice, you want to play," Valente said. "You don't think about relationships beyond the ice."
This relaxed attitude to sports drew Miranda Fasulo to Brown's intramural program as soon as she arrived on campus as the manager for planning and special programs at the Watson Institute for International Studies. An athlete in high school, Fasulo joined Slam, a women's five-on-five basketball team, looking to find a break from her life in the office.
"We play for fun," she said. "We're serious enough where we want to win … But in the end, we don't care if we win or lose."
Though the team was started by an undergrad, over time it came to include mostly staff and graduate students associated with Watson.
Fasulo said intramural sports provide a fun way to get exercise and meet other people who have a passion for sports, as well as for building the morale of University employees.
"It's great to just get people to use a gym, period," she said. "It's just a great benefit to the staff, makes them feel young and keeps them in shape."
But Fasulo said she has found the schedule for games — which sometimes start as late as 11 p.m. — inconvenient for staff and faculty, who have to be ready for work by 8:30 a.m. the next day.She said she is also frustrated by the low number of women who play intramural sports on campus. Eighty-one percent of grad students and 83 percent of faculty and staff who play intramural sports are men, according to Yee.
Because of the disproportionate ratio of male to female intramural athletes, Slam is taking a break this season. Instead, the team members have been keeping their shooting skills sharp by playing together on weekends.
Yee said it has been difficult to structure the intramural program to acheive a more equal gender distribution. Having brainstormed options, including separate leagues that were all-male, all-female and co-ed, the athletics department found that intramural athletes preferred the current system.
The mentality that anyone can enjoy intramural sports at Brown is something Gidas particularly loves about the program. Though he has been playing soccer with others from his department since the late 1980s, he only made Applied Math an official intramural team this semester.
The team consists of students, faculty and a few visiting scholars from "all over the world," including Europe, the United States and South America, said Gidas, who managed to rally together a team three hours before the application's deadline.
Soccer has held its appeal to Gidas since his childhood in Greece.
"I was born in, what was at the time, a third-world country," he said. "Soccer is always something you can play. Even if you don't have a good ball, you create one."
Gidas added that he sees connections between soccer and mathematics. "The strategic element of soccer is part of why I like it," he said. "You have the strategy to avoid blocking from other players — you have to make a split-second decision in response to an opponent who is quite intelligent."
Back on the field, Gidas blocks a member of the opposing team, moving with the dexterity of a younger man, and he successfully defends the goal from the opposing team. Applied Math triumphs over the Swedish Medics with a score of 4-2, continuing its season-long winning streak, and Gidas high-fives his teammates, patting them on the back, joking around.
"A good mind is also a good body," Gidas said. "Physical activity strengthens your mental thinking. We do have official teams here, but intramural gives the opportunity for everybody else to participate."
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