- Fordham Rams
sports program.
Fordham University sports, though not part of the
Ivy League , has nevertheless been credited with inspiring the term by comparison. The first usage of "Ivy" in reference to a group of colleges is from sportswriter Stanley Woodward (1895-1965). In an article that appeared in the "New York Tribune " onOctober 14 ,1933 , Woodward, referencing football, wrote cquote| A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil. ["Yale Book of Quotations" (2006)Yale University Press edited by Fred R. Shapiro ]According to the book "Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins"(1988)", author William Morris writes that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow "
New York Tribune " sportswriter Caswell Adams. Morris writes that during the 1930s, theFordham University football team was running roughshod over all its opponents. One day in the sports room at the "Tribune", the merits of Fordham's football team was being compared to Princeton and Columbia. Adams remarked disparagingly of the latter two, saying they were "only "Ivy League." Woodward, the sports editor of the "Tribune", picked up the term and printed it the next day.Varsity
"This is an incomplete listing of the 22 varsity sports played at Fordham."
Baseball
Founded in the late 1850s, the "Fordham Rose Hill Baseball Club" of St. John's College (the precursor to Fordham University, and of no connection at all to St. John's University) played against St. Francis Xavier College in the first ever nine-man-team
college baseball game onNovember 3 ,1859 . [http://www.library.fordham.edu/cubanbaseball/E_Bellan.html]Steve Bellán , firstLatin American to playMajor League Baseball , started his career as a player at St. John's College. [http://www.library.fordham.edu/cubanbaseball/E_Bellan.html]There have been 56 major leaguers who have played for Fordham, including All-Star pitcher
Pete Harnisch andBaseball Hall of Fame rFrankie Frisch . Frisch, a star athlete in four different sports at Fordham, was known as the "Fordham Flash". [http://www.baseball-reference.com/schools/fordham.shtml]Jack Coffey Field, a multisport field, is named after John "Jack" Coffey, former
athletic director and baseball coach at the University. He amassed 817 wins as a baseball coach. Coffey's name is also the answer to a popular baseball trivia question, since he is the only player to play with bothTy Cobb andBabe Ruth in the same season (1918Detroit Tigers andBoston Red Sox ). A renovation completed in 2005 resulted in an official renaming of the baseball portion of the field to "Houlihan Park at Jack Coffey Field".Basketball
History
On
February 28 ,1940 , Fordham hosted theUniversity of Pittsburgh atMadison Square Garden in the first ever televised basketball game. Pittsburgh won, 57-37.Cross-Country
The [http://www.fordhamsports.com/asp_new/full_news.asp?TeamID=157&NewsID=1377 Fordham Rams Cross-Country] team, which competes in the Atlantic 10 Conference, won the
IC4A 2006 Championships atVan Cortlandt Park . It was the team's first IC4A Championship in almost twenty years. [http://www.fordhamsports.com/asp_new/recap.asp?RecapID=453056154&TeamID=157&SN=Men's%20Cross%20Country&ScheduleID=3096]Football
History
First recognized as a sport at St. John's College in 1882, Fordham in its hey-day has played before sellout crowds at the
Polo Grounds andYankee Stadium . In the mid-1930s, Fordham boasted what might have been the greatest offensive and defensive line in college history -- the "Seven Blocks of Granite ." TackleEd Franco was a consensus All-American. So was centerAlex Wojciechowicz who later became an All-Pro with Detroit and Philadelphia. GuardVince Lombardi later became one of the greatest of pro coaches. In 1937, the team went undefeated and was ranked number three nationally. So popular was Fordham, that the ClevelandNFL franchise formed in the '30s took its nickname from the Rams of the Bronx. [http://footballresearch.com/articles/frpage.cfm?topic=bronx] The Cleveland Rams later moved toLos Angeles and then toSt. Louis, Missouri , and are now known as theSt. Louis Rams .On
September 30 ,1939 , Fordham participated in the world’s first televised football game. In front of the sport’s first live TV audience, the Rams defeatedWaynesburg College , 34-7. The following week they lost the second ever televised game to theUniversity of Alabama , 7-6. It was not for another month that a professionalNFL game was televised.On
December 15 1954 , Fordham scratched its football program for various reasons, mainly financial. A club football team was established in 1964 (on shaky authority) and football was re-established as a varsity sport in 1970, but inDivision III . Fordham joined what is now the NCAA Division 1 Football Championship Subdivision in 1989.With 722 all-time wins at the close of the 2005 season [http://www.ncaa.org/library/records/football/football_records_book/2005/2005_d1_football_records.pdf] , Fordham's football program ranks 15th among Division I programs on the all-time NCAA wins list, and fifth among programs currently playing in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, trailing only
Yale University , theUniversity of Pennsylvania ,Harvard University , andPrinceton University .Fordham was invited to play in the 1942 Rose Bowl, but declined the invitation because it had previously accepted a berth in the 1942
Sugar Bowl . The Rams, who defeated theUniversity of Missouri by a 2-0 score, were the 1942Sugar Bowl champions. The Rams also played in the 1941 Cotton Bowl but lost, 13-12, to Texas A&M. At least one source lists Fordham as the 1929 National Football Champions. [http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/cfr/cfr/Output/1929/CF_1929_Ranking_Best.html]Since 2002, Fordham has played
Columbia University forThe Liberty Cup . The trophy was dedicated after the attacks ofSept. 11, 2001 forced the postponement of the first annual meeting between New York City's two NCAA Football Championship Subdivision programs.Football milestones
* National Championship: 1929 [http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/cfr/cfr/Output/1929/CF_1929_Ranking_Best.html]
*
Bowl game s:
** 1941 Cotton Bowl [http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/colleges/cottonbowl/history/1941.html]
** 1942Sugar Bowl [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/217181912.html?dids=217181912:217181912&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=JAN+05%2C+1942&author=By+Romney+Wheeler+Associated+Press+Staff+Writer&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Rams+Set+Mark+For+Low+Score+In+Sugar+Bowl&pqatl=google]*
Patriot League Champions: 2002, 2007*
NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs: 2002 (Quarterfinal Loss), 2007 (First Round Loss)*
Division III Playoffs: 1987 (Quarterfinal Loss)* Liberty Cup Winners: 2003, 2004, 2007
* Wins: 722 at the end of 2005 season, 15th most wins in
NCAA , 5th most wins in Division I Football Championship SubdivisionCurrent players in professional football
*
Javarus Dudley , WR,Orlando Predators
* Kevin Eakin, QB,Team Alabama
*Aki Jones , DL,New York Dragons
* Tad Kornegay, DB,Hamilton Tiger-Cats Track and Field
Fordham was home to U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist at 800m
Tom Courtney , who anchored a World Record 4x800m Relay team of Fordham Runners in 1954.In 2008, the men's Track and Field team won the Outdoor Metropolitan Championship. The title was the first ever Metropolitan Athletic Conference team title captured by the Rams in the school's history [. [http://fordhamsports.cstv.com/sports/w-track/recaps/041908aaa.html Fordham Athletics website: "Men's Track Wins First Ever Outdoor Metropolitan Championship; Women Take Highest Ever Finish In Second Melissa Salerno and Brigid Moriarty Win Two Events Each." Melissa Salerno, April 19, 2008 (Accessed June 27, 2008)] ] .
Clubs
"This is a partial listing of the club sports played at Fordham"
Crew
Men's crew has been a club sport at Fordham since 1915, when
John Mulcahy (an alumnus and Olympic Gold medalist in the sport) helped found it there. Fordham Crew has since been quite successful, winning several national championships. The team is a member of the Dad Vail affiliation, making theDad Vail Regatta the focus of its spring racing season. Exceptional crews have competed at theIntercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championships,Henley Royal Regatta , and theSan Diego Crew Classic . The team is divided into novice and varsity squads. Fordham Athletics also sponsors a women's varsity team.Fordham Crew trains on the
Harlem River . For many years the University maintained aboathouse off the river inManhattan on "sculler's row" along Sherman Creek (the last remaining there), until it was destroyed by suspected arson in 1978. [http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/sherman_creek/booklet.pdf] It has yet to be replaced.Since 1989, Fordham has medaled every year at the Dad Vail and other major collegiate regattas. During that period the team has had 9 undefeated seasons and 13 national championships: eight at the Dad Vail, three at the
Eastern College Athletic Conference National Invitational Collegiate Regatta, one at the Division-I National Championships, and one at the IRA Championship. Fordham was the 2007 Dad Vail Champions in Men's Varsity Lightweight 4+.Hockey
The University supports hockey as a club sport. In 2006, Rams hockey took their first League championship since becoming a club in the late 1960s. The team is recognized as a Division III team by the
American Collegiate Hockey Association , and it is a member of the [http://www.methockey.com/ Metropolitan Collegiate Hockey Conference] .Lacrosse
Founded in 1970, the
Lacrosse program has grown tremendously. After years as the top independent lacrosse team in theNew York metropolitan area , the team has been accepted to be a member of the [http://www.ncllax.com/ National College Lacrosse League] . The Rams currently compete in the "NY Metro Division".Rugby
The University supports men's and women's rugby as club sports. They play in the
Metropolitan New York Rugby Union , a member ofUSA Rugby , and field within it Division I 'A' and 'B' side rugby squads. The men's team won the conference championship in 2003 and 2004, and made it to the first round of the national tournament in 2004. The women's team is a three time champion of the Big Apple Classic, which is hosted onRandall's Island , NY. They were also east coast champions in the spring of 2005. The Rose Hill Campus is host every spring to the "Irish-Italian" men's rugby game, a staple of Fordham's "Spring Weekend" festival.Sailing
Fordham is a Regular member of the
Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA), one of seven regional conferences of theIntercollegiate Sailing Association of North America (ICSA), the governing body of US Sailing. With 43 schools and a geographical territory extending from Canada to Virginia, MAISA is one of the most competitive conferences in the country. Fordham placed 10th among all teams and 2nd among all club teams, in 2007. [http://www.fordham.edu/student_affairs/student_leadership__/club_sports/sailing/index.asp] Fordham's Home Port is Morris Yacht & Beach Club overlookingLong Island Sound andEastchester Bay on City Island, a few miles from the Rose Hill campus.References
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