The records of the Department of Athletics and Recreation fonds are representative of the athletics side of the Department of Athletics and Recreation. While athletics and recreation fall under the same department, in practice, they operate independently of one another. Their textual records are also physically held at separate locations. Surviving records in the Department of Athletics and Recreation fonds are broadly representative of the achievements of UBC athletes and teams. Far less extensive, are the types of administrative documents produced or accumulated in the course of the day-to-day business of the department. Examples of records present in the fonds include programs, historical research, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, team rosters, scoresheets, profile write-ups, yearbooks, media guides, correspondence, agendas, training schedules, coaching handbooks, travel itineraries, and ephemera.
The Department of Athletics and Recreation fonds is arranged in the following series; Athletics photographs, Athletics History, Baseball, Basketball, Athletic Events (including Big Block, Hall of Fame, and Millennium Breakfast), Cross Country Track and Field, Field Hockey, Football, Golf, Ice Hockey, Media & Promotions, Assorted Sports, Other Sports (which includes Skiing, Sailing, Tennis, Gymnastics, Rowing and Wrestling), Rugby, Soccer, Swimming and Volleyball.

Fonds consists of the following series: Biographical Files (1945-1973), Subject Files (1939-1978), Annual Reports (1969-1974), UBC Publications Survey (1975-1977), Speeches - John B. MacDonald (1962-1967), Miscellaneous Subjects (1963-1983), Sound and Moving Images (1968-1983), Photographs (1969-1980), and "News from UBC" (1966-1974). The Miscellaneous subjects series includes materials pertaining to UBC's participation in "Habitat" (the 1976 United Nations Conference on Human Settlement), and the Commonwealth University Congress (1978).