Annika Dyczkowski ’25
Sports Editor
As fall sports get into full swing, the Athletics Department has instated two new initiatives to encourage competition and team spirit within all sports teams- “All In” Games and the Bantam Cup.
Each sports team on campus has been assigned one All In game during their regular season, where all other sports teams out of season are encouraged to attend and cheer on their peers. The Athletics Department is also pushing for teams to post their attendance on Instagram at All In games and tag @BantamSports and @Bantam_SA. The first All In game of the fall season was women’s soccer vs. MIT last Tuesday, and the high turnout was reflective of the new department initiative. Attendance largely outnumbered seats in the stands, so sports teams posed for pictures in the stands and overflowed on all sides of the field. Women’s soccer senior Tori Simas finds All In games to be a positive change, “It was a lot more fun to play with so many people watching, it felt like an NCAA playoff game.” Left wingback Sofia Quijada ’25 felt that the high student energy was reflected on the field, expressing how “most people would find it pressure-evoking, but I thought it made (the game) that more fun.”
The Bantam Cup is a conglomeration of athletic, academic, and community-oriented dedication on campus that is rewarded via a points system developed by the athletics department. The Bantam Cup is largely reflective of sports teams’ attendance to All In games as well as other community efforts. Athletically speaking, for instance, teams with a winning season, national ranking appearances, or 1st Team All-NESCAC players will be awarded points that are worth 35% of their total score. Teams with a fall GPA that outweigh last spring’s team GPA, 4.0 GPA team members, and the highest team GPA on campus will be awarded points that cumulate 25% of their total score. Community based achievements are worth 40% of a team’s score, and can be earned via All In game attendance, non-athletic based event attendance (such as concerts or presentations), or career building event attendance.
The weighted importance of community and career-oriented participation as compared to athletic success communicates effort from the Athletic Department to bridge the ever-present gap between student athletes and non-student athletes at Trinity. There is a heightened curiosity for whether we will observe high student-athlete presence at on-campus events like concerts, plays, and festivals to accrue points towards the newborn Bantam Cup.
Women’s soccer and volleyball saw great turnouts this past week because of this new initiative, and we can expect that this excitement will extend through the rest of the semester and with spring sports. The only sports team this week with an All In game is football; the Saturday game is the team’s home opener and kickoff is scheduled for 1:30pm. The culmination of campus excitement for the beginning of football season with high student-athlete attendance should produce an electric weekend for Bantam football. Student athlete or non-student athlete, high attendance for our home sports games is a positive reflection of a strong campus community. Be in attendance this Saturday and future All In games to continue a tradition of Bantams supporting Bantams!
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