College football may have been born on the Harvard Law School campus, but law students have been barred from playing on the college’s varsity teams since 1903. That year, the law faculty decided that varsity athletics distracted students from their primary responsibility: studying.
That hasn’t stopped generations of law students from continuing to embrace athletics. Over the years, they’ve taken part in everything from the launch of the Harvard Law rowing team in 1879 to coed pickup volleyball games played in ties and heels in the ’70s. Today, HLS students continue to find many sporty ways to nurture their friendly-but-competitive spirits — undoubtedly a much-needed distraction from the classroom, and an important way to build community amongst their peers.
Or as Peter Goeckner ’25 put it when he headed to the 2025 UVA Law Softball Invitational in Charlottesville, Virginia, as a member of the school’s club team: “It certainly made me realize how important it is to not take every single thing about law school so seriously — we’re allowed to have fun!”
These then-and-now(ish) photos offer a glimpse into the wide world of sports at Harvard Law School over the years.
Law students playing volleyball in front of Littauer Center sometime in the early ’70s. Why the ties and heels? It’s a mystery lost to time. More recently (above right, 2016) students donned more traditional athletic wear to play a summer pickup game on Belinda Sutton Quadrangle — formerly Jarvis Field. Incidentally, this is where rugby-style rules were introduced to American universities during a McGill-Harvard “foot-ball” game in 1874, which helped shape the creation of modern North American football.
Many Harvard Law School students have competed in the Boston Marathon throughout the years, including Dan Schlesinger ’86 in 1983, who finished in 8th place with a time of 2:11:37 (right, no. 5). These days, the Harvard Law Run Club hosts several group runs each week, building camaraderie among marathoners and recreational runners alike.
The (somewhat) annual Courtroom Classic (right, 2025) is a funfilled, hardfought basketball game between a team of HLS students and a team of HLS faculty and staff. (Left) In 1980, when this photo was taken, future U.S. Sen. and Virginia Gov. Mark Warner coached Harvard Law School’s first intramural women’s basketball team while earning his J.D.
Last January’s Winter Storm Fern dumped nearly two feet of snow on campus, but it didn’t stop HLS students from taking part in the long tradition of Harvard Law School football (right). As did another group of students (left) during sunnier days in 1938.
In 2025, the Harvard Law School Softball Club traveled to the 42nd annual UVA Law Softball Invitational in Charlottesville, Virginia, an event that welcomes dozens of law school teams each year (right). The World Stickball Association, founded by students in the 1970s, marked its opening day in 1975 (left). The previous season had ended prematurely when part of a player’s makeshift bat — a vacuum cleaner handle — went through a Holmes Hall window.
