Athletics
The Mules.
The college adopted the mule as its mascot in 1906.
Intercollegiate teams compete as the Mules. The monogram on the jersey is the college mark. The colors are black, gold, and gray, taken from the granite, the brass, and the wool of the early uniforms.
Dock, the college mule, is kept at the boathouse and brought to home contests by student handlers. The blanket is plain black.
Crew, the oldest sport at the college, practices at dawn. Rugby is played on the field below Founders Library. Football uses the lower field. South Hudson Institute of Technology offers no athletic scholarships. Athletes are admitted, aided, and graded the same way as every other student, and practices end in time for dinner. The college belongs to no conference. Each team arranges its own schedule, mostly against small colleges in the Northeast, around one fixed date: the River Match against Fenmore Polytechnic in November. The Boat Club, which is older than the athletic department, still runs the crews.
South Hudson Institute of Technology · West Point, New York
“Dock has never lost a game. He has been present for several.”
Teams
Varsity
- Football
- Men’s and women’s crew
- Men’s and women’s rugby
- Men’s and women’s soccer
- Men’s and women’s basketball
- Men’s and women’s cross country
- Swimming
- Baseball
- Softball
- Volleyball
Club
- Tennis
- Ultimate
- Climbing (with the Outing Club)
- Sailing
Intramurals
The Quad Club runs intramurals by house in fall and winter: soccer, basketball, volleyball, and a winter swim relay. The results count toward the Terrace Cup. About half of all students play.
Game day
On home Saturdays students gather on the library steps before the match. Dock comes up from the boathouse with his handlers, and the Pep Band plays from the top of the steps. After a home win, the handlers ring the terrace bell three times.
“The library steps hold about four hundred people. On a cold Saturday they hold about four hundred people who said they’d only stay for the first half.”
The River Match
Fenmore Polytechnic, a small college of engineering farther up the river, first challenged the college to a rugby match in 1897. The Mules lost. The two sides have met every November since, home and away in alternate years, and the series is close enough that both colleges keep their own count. The winner holds the Sounding Lead, a river pilot’s lead weight on a knotted line, for the year.
The week before the match is for quiet work: harmless pranks that leave no mark and are undone by morning. On Friday night the Pep Band leads the college down to the lower field, where a bonfire burns a timber model of a footbridge. The match is played on Saturday. Afterward the two sides sing each other’s college songs, the losing side first, and then share a dinner. When the Mules win, the handlers ring the terrace bell three times. When the match is at home, Dock attends in his plain black blanket.
“Fenmore is a fine college with a fine rugby side, and we hope they enjoy the Sounding Lead’s visit to their campus every other year or so.”
Facilities
- North Dock and the boathouse. Crew practices at dawn, from March to November.
- The rugby pitch, below Founders Library. It has the best-attended seats on campus, which are the steps.
- The lower field. Used for football, soccer, and in spring, baseball and softball.
- The Field House. Basketball, volleyball, a six-lane pool, and the weight room.
- The ridge courts. Four tennis courts, windy in every season.