As the sun began setting over the Intramural Field and the heat began to fade, professors and students alike could be seen stretching and lacing up their cleats.
Conversations could be heard regarding the World Cup, Premier League and geographic information systems.
This was the scene preceding the Denis Cosgrove Von Humboldt Futbol Tournament, an annual soccer tournament hosted by and for the geography department.
Each spring for the past four years, geography Professor Thomas Gillespie has organized the tournament, which took place Wednesday and Thursday.
“It’s spring, we’ve all been working so hard, and it’s a good time to blow some steam off,” Gillespie said.
The tournament, which runs for two days, is open to everyone in the geography department, including undergraduate students, graduate students and professors. Participants compete in five-on-five games in a World Cup-style bracket.
“There’s nothing more geographical than the World Cup which comes up this summer,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie said that given UCLA’s diversity, he thought it would be fun to assemble teams of people representing their homelands. Players represented 20 different countries ranging from Luxembourg to Japan. One undergraduate student even proudly listed his country of origin as the state of Texas.
Team names were also as original and diverse as the players on the teams. Timur Hammond, a third-year geography graduate student, named his team The Whirling Dervishes in reference to his Turkish heritage.
Andrew Fricker, a third-year geography graduate student and captain of GOALDAR, named his team after the work he does with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging),
Names such as Humboldt’s Homies, a reference to the von Humboldt Chair of Geography, as well as Slaves to Satellites, a reference to the department’s work with satellite image systems, showed off the participants’ ties to the geography department.
With both students and faculty competing together on the same teams, the tournament provides a unique opportunity for students and professors to meet and interact with each other in a non-academic setting.
“It’s kind of exciting because … (professors) play too,” said Edgar Onofre, a fourth-year geography/environmental studies student. “It lets you see a different side of professors that you’re not used to when you’re taking classes with them.”
Although the majority of the participants are students, the professors who do play have been known to display soccer skills as sharp as their intellect.
Hammond said Professor Marilyn Raphael scored a hat trick the first year she played in the tournament. “We have our eye out for her,” Hammond said. “We don’t let her get all three goals anymore.”
While the emphasis of the tournament is on participating in a recreational sporting event with fellow geographers, there was no lack of competitive excitement this year.
In Wednesday’s preliminary round, both games ended in a tie in regulation and had to be decided by penalty kicks. On Thursday, Humboldt’s Homies defeated Slaves to Satellites to secure third place, leaving GOALDAR to face off against The Whirling Dervishes in the championship game.
As the evening wore on, the championship game remained knotted at one apiece until the last minute of play. It was then that fourth-year geography student Theodore Conrad punched in the deciding goal amid a storm of players in front of the net to give GOALDAR the lead and the championship.
This year, first place received signed books by world-renowned professor Jared Diamond, while second and third place were awarded with a combination of UCLA clothing. Win or lose, most participants appeared to enjoy the tournament as they joked, smiled and high-fived each other after the championship game.
“You come out here, you have a lot of fun,” Onofre said. “You also meet a lot of new people too. It’s a good thing.