The Bethany Swedes (historically the Bethany Terrible Swedes) are the athletic teams that represent Bethany College, located in

Lindsborg, Kansas Lindsborg is a city in McPherson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 3,776. Lindsborg is known for its large Swedish, other Nordic and Scandinavian Americans ( Nordic- Scandinavian), and German ...

, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to its stu ...

(NAIA), primarily competing in the

Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference The Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The KCAC is the oldest conference in the NAIA and the second oldest in the United Stat ...

(KCAC) since the 1902–03 academic year.

Varsity teams

Bethany competes in 22 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, tennis, track & field (indoor and outdoor) and wrestling; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field (indoor and outdoor) and volleyball; and co-ed sports include cheerleading, dance and eSports.

Football

The school plays

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

. Former coach

Ted Kessinger Ted Kessinger (born January 15, 1941) is a former American football coach. He served as the head football coach at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas from 1976 to 2003, compiling a record of 219–57–1 for a winning percentage of . He is amo ...

was named to the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

in 2010 and former coach

Bennie Owen Benjamin Gilbert Owen (July 24, 1875 – February 26, 1970) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Washburn College, now Washburn University, in 1900, at Bethany C ...

was inducted in 1951.

Tennis (men's)

Despite having a school population under 1,000, the Bethany men's tennis team has received national recognition. Bethany men's tennis team won 52

championships, including a streak of 26 KCAC titles in a row. The Bethany College men won 97 straight KCAC matches in a row under head coach Vic Bateman, undefeated in 11 straight years of KCAC Conference play. Under Bateman the men's tennis team reached the Elite 8 at the NAIA nationals and was ranked one of the top ten tennis programs in the country.http://www.salina.com/sports/juco_small_college/bethany-tennis-coach-resigns/article_b5982036-770a-5e77-99e8-45a4d23458d9.html

References

External links

* {{Kansas Sports