Rutgers Athletics: A History of Excellence

American collegiate sports have a proud and respected history, with the Rutgers athletics program standing out among the brightest. One of the first universities in the country to bring their sports program to an intercollegiate arena, they waged battles on the field and the court with Yale, Columbia, and of course Princeton in those early years (as well as long into the future). These four schools designed the rules of competition in 1873 and began a tradition that would remain as strong as ever over a hundred years later. Football was the name of the game for these big four intercollegiate giants in those early days, and it remains one of the primary center points of Rutgers athletics many years later. Of course, football is far from the only sport the school concentrates on. Its history includes baseball, basketball, soccer, and more. Remarkably, many of the school's sports endeavors remained unaffiliated with any official conference for much of its history. From a brief period in the 1940s, the school belonged to the Middle Three Conference and they enjoyed a brief stint in the Middle Atlantic Conference in the late 1950s. In 1976, the school joined the Atlantic 10 Conference and remained there until 1995. Since then, the university has been affiliated with the Big East. A cursory glance at the Rutgers athletics program will show a strong school spirit, embodied by the color scarlet. The Scarlet Knights, as they are known, came to be when their school mascot beat out other contenders such as the "Scarlet" and the "Flying Dutchmen". For a long time prior to that change, the school was known as the Chanticleer's, although its association with a chicken led to much ridicule in the sports pages. With a knight at the forefront of the program, the potential for mockery was eliminated and the mascot reflected the school's integrity and tenacity on the field. Of course, while the national focus is naturally on Rutgers athletics and their intercollegiate activities, the school also plays host to smaller scale sports for those who have not the interest or ability to get involved at a highly competitive level. Sports clubs abound on two campuses and, though the level of competition amongst the participating schools may not reach the fevered pitch seen at 1 Scarlet Knights Way, don't tell that to those who take the field on a regular basis to prove their skills in their chosen arena. Intramural sports are also prominent on campus, giving anyone and everyone the chance to compete against their fellow students.