Faculty Fastbreak

Intramural basketball gives Redshirt 50th Year Seniors the chance to revel in community

It’s 11 a. m. on an unseasonably dreary Sunday, and the scaries are coming in hot. As the desire to curl up under a blanket and put on “Twilight” for the seventeenth time grows, a reminder pops up: your favorite professor has a basketball game in Malley that afternoon. The thought of possibly earning extra credit for showing up is enough to make you tie up the laces on your fresh Forces and amble over to see if the faculty are all talk and no game.

Getting to the court just at tipoff, the first thing you notice is how shockingly human the faculty look as they run the court in ‘normal people’ clothes–no whiteboards, collared shirts or computer bags in sight. 

Going by the name “Redshirt 50th Year Seniors,” the team of engineers, physics geniuses and economics lecturers confer and banter as they cheer on their teammates. For this faculty team, working with professors outside their own departments builds a sense of community and makes their time at Santa Clara that much more memorable.

Team captain and communication professor Andrew Ishak loves sports–they’re a huge part of how he defines what it means to really live life to the fullest.

“I do take a little bit of pride that we had people from all over the departments–it’s an interdisciplinary team,” Ishak said. “I think for the students, it’s nice to hear that faculty are interacting in ways that aren’t just faculty meetings.”

The easygoing demeanor of the faculty athletes is a reminder that we’re all just striving for happiness. 

“Oftentimes when I’m doing something, I wonder if it’s the thing I want to do, or if I’m doing it so I can do the next thing,” Ishak said. “It’s nice to try to do more things that we look at as the things we live for. I like sports a lot, and everytime I play sports, I think, ‘this is the thing I want to do.’ If I can throw more things like that into my life, I’m happy.”

Professors: they’re just like you and me, hoping to find a community of joy and normalcy in as many sectors of life as possible.

Communication professor and “Imaginarium” VR lab director David Jeong has experienced the power of togetherness firsthand. In his third year of teaching at Santa Clara, finding pieces of regularity amongst the chaos has been a quintessential point of playing on the faculty team.

“Over the past year, ever since Malley reopened after COVID-19, basketball was my way of kind of getting back into normal life,” said Jeong. “It’s been a big part of getting back into it after everything.”

If we know anything about sports teams, it’s that things can get real competitive, real fast. It’s rare to find a team anywhere that can compartmentalize their real-life values from their behavior in the midst of competition. For the Redshirt 50th Year Seniors, though, their only priority is to get to know each other and have fun; any sports drama they encounter becomes nothing more than banter between friends.

“To me, our team is just a collection of staff and faculty and they’re very collegial,” said Jeong. “There’s no bro-ness to it. Everyone is just very supportive overall.”

Toxicity in sports? That’s so Draymond Greene. Santa Clara faculty basketball players just want to chum it up with their colleagues and focus on what really matters.

“It’s so much fun to play sports, especially with people who are there to also make sure everyone is having fun,” said Ishak. “My team got along so well with each other, and because of that it’s been a positive impact on all of our relationships. I sometimes say it’s my favorite thing at Santa Clara.”

With such rave reviews, it’s no wonder that faculty sports teams bring Broncos in every life stage closer. Working together on and off the court, faculty become human in the eyes of their students as they search for the same things we do: connection and true triumph. Moments like this build hope for young adults searching for meaning; at least, finding a community in the post-graduation “real world” may not be so hard after all.

And just like that, the Sunday Scaries aren’t quite so overwhelming. 

After cheering on the wide range of academics on the court, it’s time to return to the coziness of Campisi and finish up the last of homework you’ve been putting off all weekend. Watching the game lifted your spirits, and suddenly the paper on quantum physics you’ve been avoiding feels like a mystery to be solved rather than paint to watch dry. 

Though the week will always feel daunting just before it starts, seeing familiar faces ballin’ out makes the good life seem a lot more attainable.