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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 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.