If you enter Haverty gym most nights of the week, you’re bound to stumble onto something that has become essentially “Benedictine,” a cultural, Raven-founded phenomenon—
The Underground Benedictine Basketball Association, or UBBA.
Born from a love of basketball and a desire for something more structured than a pickup game, UBBA has become one of the most compelling student-run organizations on campus. Cal Wanninger, UBBA captain, senior, and a one-time league champion, has a simple way of describing it. “It’s pickup basketball taken way too seriously,” he said.
UBBA was born in quarantine. When campus life shut down and intramural sports disappeared, a group of students still wanted to play. “People wanted to play intramural and couldn’t,” Cal said, so they made their own thing. What started as a workaround quietly became something else entirely- a league with a draft, captains, commissioner, a full schedule of games, and at the end of it all, a trophy.
A real one. Not a printout, not a handshake- a physical, hold-it-over-your-head, send-a-photo-to-your-parents trophy.
Joe Anderson, senior, fellow captain and two-time UBBA champion, says that’s exactly the idea. “It’s the closest thing to collegiate sports,” he said. His best memory in the league? Winning it. Twice.
Cal’s best memory is a little different. “Beating the fifth year’s that doesn’t even go here anymore,” he said, grinning.
That’s UBBA in a nutshell- equal parts genuine competition and pure Benedictine spirit. On the court, the intensity is real. Players celebrate after baskets. Crowds show up. Rivalries develop. The league is self-organized, self-funded, and self-regulated- no coaches, no administrators, no official backing of any kind. Membership skews mostly male, though anyone willing to compete is welcome. Each season, captains hold a formal draft, selecting rosters from a pool of players in a process that generates its own brand of pre-season drama. By the time draft night is over, loyalties are set and the season has a storyline.
This year’s UBBA Championship is set for the first week of May. The bracket is yet to be decided, but one thing is certain- in Haverty gym, a team will hoist that trophy and cement their place among Benedictine’s underground legends.
UBBA is, in many ways, quintessentially Benedictine. It’s built on community, commitment, and showing up. These are values that run through the fabric of this college, in the classrooms and the basketball courts. What started as something to do during a pandemic has become, by almost any measure, a Benedictine institution -built by students who refused to let the game die.
Pickup basketball taken way too seriously. Benedictine is better for it.
