Advancing Athletics: Sports Related Clubs at Hopkins

Clubs like Badminton, Pickleball, Volleyball, and Ultimate Frisbee host meetings to just play the sport. Led by Shriya Vaid ’26 and Bella Li ’26, the Badminton Club started last year as “a way to share a love for badminton with the Hopkins community” by providing “a safe place for everyone to enjoy and play, from experts to beginners.” The Pickleball Club, led by Beckett Ehrlich ’27 and Arjun Vashist ’27, faces the same challenge. With meetings on the North Tennis Courts, the club only meets in the fall and spring, due to weather constraints. The club seeks to “introduce people to pickleball, while also giving them a space to relax during the school day (as Hopkins is a hyper-stressful place),” said Vashist. This spring, the Pickleball club plans on hosting a competition to raise money for charity. Ashwin Wijesekera ’27 and Dev Talwalker ’27 started the Ultimate Frisbee club to promote fun and unite people through frisbee. Talwalker remarked, “We played frisbee after lunch all the time so we thought we should make a club.” 

Similarly, the Volleyball club was formed this fall by Sam Lawler ’27 and Lukas Roberts ’27. Lawler and Roberts started a club because they“enjoyed playing Volleyball during the fall season…during any free period we had” Lawler and Roberts appealed to the athletic department for the creation of a men’s volleyball team, but after being rejected, they “resorted to the next best idea,” remarked Lawler. Hilltop Hype is led by Kate Wagner ’28 and Maeve Phipps ’27. This club is a place to “practice and learn graphic design skills while promoting Hopkins athletics,” said Phipps. Wagner agreed: “I also wanted to help increase awareness of school sports games and improve overall school spirit.” According to Wagner, “Most of our work happens outside of the activities block… [club members] create the graphics on their own time and send them to me.” 

Two clubs foster a community of fans for non-Hopkins represented in certain sports. Motorsports on the Hill, led by Thooyan Thirumaran ’26 and Josie Sirowich ’26, seeks to connect motorsport fans across Hopkins. Sirowich described,, “We aim to spread the sport and its fanbase. We also hope to create a community of fans to discuss and connect with each other.” Meetings begin with club members debriefing the most recent Formula 1 race, or discussing any relevant F1 news. Then, an activity or competition takes place, usually a fantasy F1 grand prix “draw your own track” challenge or a racing simulator. These competitions aim to “increase retention [for participants],” as Sirowich explained. 

The Hockey Club, led by Will Forrest ’27 and Sean Studley ’26, seeks “to bring together the hockey community within Hopkins,”underlinedStudley. He continued, “Since we don’t have a team, we wanted to create a space where people who share the same passion for hockey can come together.” The club intends to collaborate with the local nonprofit organization Shoulder Check, a kindness initiative that seeks to promote mental welfareamong young men and women. The group focuses on athlete-athlete connectionThe hockey club plans on running a bake sale in collaboration with the organization. 

Hopkins Sports Programming Network (HSPN) is led by Matt Ragaza ’26 and Henry Weinstein ’26. HSPN was founded last year as a branch of HopTV, but became its own club this year. In Ragaza’s words, the club’s mission is “teaching students how to broadcast sports games, along with other skills, like communicating with opposing coaches and gathering information on other teams for broadcasting notes.” Most of the club’s work takes place outside of the activities block, as they set up broadcasting equipment before games start and edit footage. Club members plan out the logistics and equipment needed to livestream upcoming games. Ragaza mentioned some of the struggles the club had: “This year, we were unable to get as many broadcasts going as all of our equipment got backordered” Ragaza added, “Broadcasting and Sports Programming is quite a fun experience, and we hope someone in the future who is interested in broadcasting finds themselves keeping the club going and growing.”

The Sports Analytics Club, founded this year, is led by Tommy Corwin ’27, Silas Kennedy ’27, and Beckett Ehrlich ’27.Corwin spoke on behalf of all three founders: “We started it this year because we realized we could share our love for sports while bringing academics into it.” Corwin asserted that the club’s purpose “is to teach classmates how to view sports at the next level. There’s a lot more to sports than you see on television… there’s so many statistics that teams use to predict outcomes that the casual fan doesn’t realize.” Outside of the meetings, the club heads watch and analyze a variety of sports games to present to the club. Members also compete against each other by striving to get the most correct “picks” for the week (choosing which team will win certain games), and the winner receives a jersey prize.

Collectively, the sports-related clubs at Hopkins help enrich the club experience and the athletic experience. From sports that are not at Hopkins, to broadcasting and even analyzing sports games, the sports-related clubs at Hopkins offer a safe space to learn and hone a unique variety of interests and skills.