After two years in the making, the Yale Polo team hosted Morehouse College, in what organizers hoped was the first in a series of matches between the two teams.
On Oct. 11, The Yale men’s polo team kicked off their fall season with a historic first match against Morehouse College, the first polo team at a historically Black college and university, or HBCU, in the United States.
After two years of discussions between both college clubs, the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale and other sponsoring organizations, Calaway Swanson ’25 and Morehouse Polo President Tyrsten Williams organized the first match between the teams. Organizers hope this event will become an annual tradition.
“One of Morehouse polo’s goals is to inspire other HBCUs and people of color to not only play polo … but to be in places that they might want to be in, but may not have the chance to be in,” Williams told the News. “So with Yale and Morehouse, I think that was a good opportunity to inspire other people of color to do the same.”
The game consisted of four Chuckers or quarters, each seven and a half minutes, and ended in a 16-15 Yale victory. Williams said that the game was “very high-energy” and “very competitive.”
Swanson, a member of the Yale men’s polo team, attributed the match’s competitiveness to Morehouse’s largely cowboy backgrounds and riding experience and “the kind of heritage that they’re building off of.”
The Morehouse polo team is the first and currently only HBCU polo team. The team was established in 2019 and became a member of the United States Polo Association in 2020.
Swanson mentioned that although the game had been discussed for two years, final arrangements came together quickly in September. The idea originated with Tonit Calaway, Swanson’s mother, who suggested the collaboration to Swanson and then reached out to Morehouse as well.
Swanson said that the Yale polo team hosted Morehouse in their dorms because he wanted the players to have “the full experience” at Yale. Calaway and her company Topcat LLC sponsored all travel and food expenses for the weekend.
Williams noted that with Calaway’s son as the only African American player on the Yale Men’s Polo team and Morehouse being the first HBCU polo team, “she wanted to help out.”
Williams told the News that he was grateful for the Yale team’s hospitality during their time at Yale and for a tour around campus from the Yale players. Williams also noted that the team enjoyed some good food and Yale traditions.
“I think it was a very monumental collaboration for both teams and a very monumental weekend. A lot of good experiences and good connections were made. So, forever grateful for that trip,” Williams said.
The weekend also featured a reception at the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale co-hosted by the Black Men’s Union.
Swanson shared that Timeica Bethel, director of the Af-Am House, was supportive of the event. Bethel also shared that should this polo match become an annual tradition, “the House will always be here to support the initiative by hosting the reception.”
“It was important for me to let the Morehouse students know that this is more than a building, it’s a home away from home and they are welcome here,” Bethel wrote to the News. “I also wanted them to know that if they decide to consider Yale as a potential next step in their educational journeys, The House would be here.”
At the end of the reception, Calaway promised to donate $10,000 to Morehouse next year to help their program grow and continue.
Swanson and Calaway also jointly promised to make a matching donation of $10,000 to Yale’s team in recognition of the Yale Polo Club and its executive board for “never doubting the vision for this event and for helping to facilitate it,” Swanson told the News.
For Swanson, the match was an example of the new image of polo — “a sport that is not just rich and white; it pays out, literally.”
For Williams, the match’s significance is similar. Seeing people of color in a space where they have not traditionally been represented sends “shock waves.”
The collaboration supported Morehouse’s mission of “inspiring change agents, sending young men out there in the world, being that difference in the rooms that we’re not usually in, advocating for our community and our culture,” Williams said.
Williams wrote that he is hopeful that the game will continue in the future and that the Morehouse polo team may be able to host Yale polo in Atlanta next time.
Swanson also shared that he hopes the game will inspire other HBCUs to create their own programs and teams, and the sport “won’t have this aura of exclusivity that it has had for the past hundreds of years.”
Morehouse College was founded in 1867.
Nora Moses contributed reporting.KARLA CORTES Karla Cortes covers Student Policy and Affairs at Yale under the University Desk. From Woodstock, Georgia, she is a sophomore in Silliman College majoring in political science