For much of the United States, Punxsutawney Phil and his famous walk on Feb. 2 is the anointed decider of the spring to come. Phil is cute, traditional and annoyingly pessimistic. Baseball, on the other hand, serves its role in the sports calendar admirably.
Sports
Swim-flation hits the 5Cs
At the 2026 SCIAC Swim and Dive Championships on Feb. 18-22, four out of the 10 relay meet records were broken, and three individual event records were broken. In addition, seven freshmen won SCIAC titles.
The Foxes’ rise to Division I domination of their own accord
After entering Division I rugby in 2023, the Claremont Foxes have steadily scaled the rankings and now stand — undefeated — as the top seed of the PDRC.
Athenas brave power outage, best Sagehens in multi weekend series
On Feb. 22, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) softball claimed a 2-1 series victory against rivals Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) in a hard-fought slate of games that stretched across two weekends due to a stadium lighting malfunction.
Sagehens water polo avenges January loss, wins second of three Sixth Street matches
On Wednesday, Feb. 25th, Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) women’s water polo battled in the most recent iteration of the Sixth Street Rivalry. CMS’s win in the prior matchup marked their first in 14 years over the Sagehens.
Get Your Head in the Game: How 5C chess players love the game Kasparov hated
Grandmaster Garry Kasparov compares chess to “mental torture” — a statement that at first glance seems overdramatized for a leisure activity enjoyed by seniors at the local park — but to budding competitive chess players, could be an emerging reality.
Paulo Dybala and the art of being second
How does it feel to be good, but not quite good enough? Otto Fritton PZ ’27 explores the confusing career of footballer Paulo Dybala, feeling as though some chapters were left unwritten for the Juventus regular and Argentine international.
Seminars and scoreboards: Sports and politics
Every semester, the Claremont Colleges advertise nearly 2,700 courses across dozens of disciplines. This semester, course selections offer a whopping six sports courses taught by four different instructors across three colleges. In Jake Creelan’s PO ’29 new column, Seminars and Scoreboards, he dissects the contents of each course with the course’s instructors and students. First on the list is Sports and Politics taught by Tom Le of Pomona College.
Eileen Gu and the double standard toward China
Chinese-American Olympic skier Eileen Gu speaks fluent Mandarin. She was raised in a single-mother household by her Chinese mother, and she visited Beijing every summer as a child. Should she be criticized for choosing to represent the People’s Republic of China, the homeland of her mother, over the United States, the country of her birth? Jun Kwon PO ’28 argues that the conservative backlash against Gu is a symptom of a broader misunderstanding of citizenship in America and defends Gu’s decision to represent her motherland.
Stags basketball shoots their shot, wins Valentine’s Day Sixth Street showdown
Valentine’s Day is for lovers, but in Claremont, the CMS Stags defeated the P-P Sagehens in a heated rivalry, topping them 76-62. Despite a strong grasp in the first half, the Sagehens were ultimately unable to deny the Stags a Sixth Street title and a seat at the top of SCIAC. Guard Brady Karich CM ’28 attributed the win to the team’s ability to keep its focus on the game at hand.