James Foster, Production Editor
Chris Stoneman, Senior Staff Writer
Emma Benardete, Editor-in-Chief
Celia Perks, Senior Staff Writer
John Elrod, Sports Editor
For much of my life, following sports has been synonymous with newspapers. I remember waking up early in the morning as a little kid to read about how Cleveland’s professional teams did the night before in The Plain Dealer when I was still too young to stay up for night games. I remember thinking it was really cool to see my name in Oberlin News-Tribune articles — written by parents of kids on the team — for my U8 rec soccer heroics. I remember designing my own newspapers on printer paper inspired by playing sports video games and drawing detailed pictures that surely had captions and photo...
On March 31, the Oberlin Athletics Instagram account posted eight photos of Oberlin transgender student-athletes in celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility. Student-athletes posed in creative ways in front of a black background, which made the colorful expressions and unique poses stand out. Maggie Balderstone, a third-year athlete on the women’s basketball team, and Chase Sortor, a fourth-year athlete on the men’s track and field team, were the brains behind the TDOV photoshoot. “Chase had talked to [Assistant Director of Athletics Communications] Amanda Phillips about wanting to...

Founded in 2019, the Black Student- Athlete Group has played a pivotal role in helping Black athletes find community on campus. According to the BSAG webpage on GoYeo, the mission of the group is to “create a united community for Black student-athletes on Oberlin College’s campus [and] to provide that group of students with a voice and an organization specifically dedicated to promoting them and their success.” Naeisha McClain, OC ’20, is a founding member of BSAG and a former thrower on the women’s track and field team. McClain said that their experience as a thrower inspired them to...

Amid unrest after the Vietnam War, one of the societal values that was called into question was a term known as SportsWorld, the idea that sports were known for sacrifice and honor, coined by journalist Robert Lipsyte. From the arrest of Muhammad Ali to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics protests, more people were interrogating this belief. Jack Scott was one of these people. A runner for Stanford and Syracuse University and a Ph.D. candidate from the University of California at Berkeley, Scott had a radical philosophy that advocated against traditional views of competition in favor of breaking down...

When talking about Oberlin football, the conversation eventually diverges to the legendary Heisman era. But what about the other contributors during this time period, and what legacy did they leave behind at Oberlin? John Henry Wise was born in 1868 to a German father and a Hawaiʻian mother. Originally a student at Hilo Boarding School, he was brought to be a part of the first class of the Kamehameha School for Boys by the Reverend William Brewster Oleson, OC 1877, who wanted to educate native Hawaiʻians on Christianity in hopes of spreading a Protestant revival across the island. “These...

Some might assume that such an intellectual group as the Review staff would not have many experiences in the sporting world. However, after conducting extensive interviews with my co-workers, I discovered that we are a staff of athletes with incredibly interesting sports stories to tell. You will notice that my name doesn’t appear in this list. That’s because I know nothing about sports. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity. Kushagra Kar, Editor-in-Chief: I have done swimming my whole life. It was always something fun for me to do with my brother. In boarding school, it was...

Last weekend, two members of the track and field team traveled to Delaware, Ohio, to compete in the North Coast Athletic Conference Heptathlon at Ohio Wesleyan University. Third-year Hayden Hill and first-year Celia Vaughn earned the team 13 points over the two-day competition, with Vaughn earning a sixth-place finish and Hill coming out on top with 3,757 points. First introduced at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the heptathlon is a competition in which athletes, typically competing in the women’s division, participate in seven events: the 100-meter hurdles, the long jump, shot put, and...

As they are in a far more casual environment than varsity teams, club and intramural sports offer students the opportunity to rekindle their love for athletics. The perfect example of this at Oberlin is the club soccer team. The focus of club soccer is not winning but rather enjoyment and fun. “As captains, we’ve heavily focused on being inclusive — we definitely prioritize everyone having a chance to get on the ball and improve their skills over playing the highest level of soccer possible,” College second-year and captain of club soccer Noah Elazar wrote in an email to the Review. “I...

ExCo courses and club activities have been hallmarks of Oberlin, standing as prototypical examples of the College’s selection of unique educational and extracurricular opportunities. Obies have the liberty to do, learn, and teach others about practically anything we put our minds to, and nowhere is that freedom more apparent than within the rock-climbing community. Tucked discreetly into a corner of Philips gym, Oberlin’s climbing wall is high quality with a 25-foot-tall pillar and 360-square foot bouldering cave to match. “I came from a competitive climbing background, so it was really...
Before COVID-19 restrictions severely limited its activities, the Equestrian Team was one of the largest intercollegiate club sports on campus, hosting approximately 30 members. After a two-year hiatus from competing, the team is back up and galloping. Oberlin competes in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (Zone 6 Region 1), which includes some schools from the North Coast Athletic Conference as well as other schools in Ohio. The commitment that Oberlin riders make to their sport is extraordinary. Hunt shows take around two days, often requiring riders to commit to the whole weekend, and...

While the brief window of time between fall and winter sports seasons means fewer opportunities to watch the Yeowomen and Yeomen right now, there’s still a sport for avid Oberlin fans to attend that’s currently in full swing. On Mondays and Tuesdays, faculty and students alike serve, dodge, and volley against each other in friendly matches, competing as part of the Intramural Doubles Pickleball League. As previously reported in the Review, pickleball’s popularity experienced a 650-percent surge of interested players in the past six years, and especially skyrocketed during pandemic restrictions...
Editor’s Note: Last week’s issue of the Review included a comprehensive timeline of anti-trans bills in Ohio. On Feb. 15, the Republican-led House of Representatives...

Since 2021, John Elrod has worked as a Contributing Sports editor and Sports editor at the Review. His coverage has been dedicated to local sports — including his tribute...

Chris Donaldson, OC ’97, currently works as the assistant dean of inclusion and belonging at the Multicultural Resource Commons. As a student at Oberlin, he was a baseball...

During her time as a student at Oberlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology Alicia Smith-Tran, OC ’10, was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and a member of the women’s...

Maria Chutko, a first-year and outfielder from Pittsburgh, just broke the Oberlin softball team’s record of bases stolen in a single year. Chutko has currently stolen 23...
Aidan Loh and Abbie Patchen are this yearʼs co-chairs for the Student- Athlete Advisory Committee. Patchen, a third-year Law and Society major and player on the womenʼs...

“My football career was done, so I just took advantage of it, and thankfully it worked out pretty well,” Chris Allen Jr. said when talking about joining the basketball team...