Intramural sports and recreation at Duke began in 1902 under Coach Wilbur "Cap" Card. From 1926-1929, men's and women's physical education grew as separate entities. By 1960, the department had evolved away from strenuous exercise in preparation for war and moved towards supervised group fitness and the continued growth of intramural sports. Men's and women's departments merged in 1975 to create the Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. The department was made a non-academic unit in 1980 and was later restructured to become part of the Office of Student Affairs. The Duke Intramural Sports Scrapbook was collected by Recreation and Physical Education and contains clippings and photographs of various male intramural sports events, including the Big Four event that Duke participated in along with North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University.

The scrapbook was disbounded and the pages separated into folders. Pages 1-23 cover the years 1968-1971, and pages 24-39 cover the years 1964-1968. The folders contain clippings and photographs of some of the intramural sports teams, including teams from the law school, medical school, fraternities, selective living groups, and freshman houses. The clippings cover various Duke events and the "Big Four Day," in which Duke would compete against University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Wake Forest University.

The Dept. of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (HPER) was created in 1975 by the merger of the Men's and Women's Physical Education Departments. However, formal physical education at Duke University dates to 1902 when President Kilgo invited Wilbur "Cap" Card to return to Trinity College as Director of a new program in physical education. The collection contains printed material on intramural athletics, personal recreational programs, physical education, and materials related to Duke sports clubs. The John Friedrich papers series consists of administrative records pertaining to his chairmanship of HPER from 1963-1986.

The General files series in the Dept. of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (HPER) collection contains materials pertaining to the origins and activities of HPER including material on intramural athletics, personal recreational programs, and physical education. This includes flyers, intramural handbooks, clippings, manual for the Men's Physical Education program of 1932, and issues of the Faculty Fitness Newsletter. The John Friedrich papers series contains administrative records pertaining to his chairmanship of HPER. Includes correspondence, minutes and agendas from several University committees including Academic Council, Commencement Committee, and Undergraduate Faculty Council of Arts and Sciences (UFCAS), as well as minutes from HPER departmental meetings. Friedrich presided over the HPER restructuring debates of the 1970s and early 1980s and reports, proposals, and clippings regarding retrenchment of the Dept. are present in this series. The collection also contains photographs, alumni lists, constitutions, charters, and training and exercise materials related to various Duke sports clubs.