The George Washington Colonials are the athletic teams of

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presi ...

of Washington, D.C. The Colonials compete in Division I of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA) as members of the

Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Easter ...

for most sports. On June 15, 2022, the board of trustees announced that George Washington University would drop the "Colonials" nickname because it "no longer does the work that a moniker should—namely, unifying the campus behind our academic and athletic institutional aspirations." A new name is expected by the 2023–24 academic year.

Sports sponsored

Baseball

The GW Colonials baseball team is a varsity intercollegiate athletic team of George Washington University. The team is a member of the

, which is part of the

's Division I. The team plays its home games at Tucker Field in

Barcroft Park Tucker Field at Barcroft Park is a baseball venue located in Arlington, Virginia, US. The field is home to the George Washington Colonials baseball team of the NCAA Division I Atlantic 10 Conference. The field holds a capacity of 500 spectat ...

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county ...

. The Colonials are coached by Gregg Ritchie. George Washington's first baseball team was fielded in 1891.

Men's basketball

The GW Colonials men's basketball team plays its home games in the Charles E. Smith Center, which is also shared with other GW Colonials athletic programs. The team competes in the

. It qualified for the

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams fro ...

in 2014 for the first time since

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...

and won the NIT Tournament Championship in 2016. The Colonials' head coach is Jamion Christian.

Soccer

The GW Colonials men's soccer team competes in NCAA Division 1 Men's Soccer in the A10 (

) along with 13 other teams. The program began in 1967 and has earned two A10 Championships in 2002 and 2004 and two regular-season A10 titles in 1992 and 2011. The team made it to the NCAA Tournament 3 times, including the Round of Sweet 16 in 1989. The GW Colonials men's soccer team has won the DC College Cup twice, in 2007 and 2008. The cup is a competition between four Washington, D.C. universities, including George Mason University,

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was cha ...

, and

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

Women's gymnastics

The women's gymnastics team is coached by Margie Foster Cunningham and assisted by both Barry Kistler and Jeff Richards. In the 2013–2014 season, the Colonials were led by senior captains Taylor Henderson, Kayla Carto, and Betsy Zander.

Men's and Women's Cross Country/Track and Field

The Men's and Women's track and field program is coached by Terry Weir, and assisted by, Matthew Lange. George Washington competes in the Atlantic-10 conference. The Women's Cross Country team finished runner-up in the 2019 Atlantic 10 team championship. They have been represented at the NCAA National Championship five times since 2009: Megan Hogan twice in cross country (2009, 2010), Suzanne Dannheim in cross country (2019) and outdoor track (2019), Carter Day in outdoor track (2018), and Matthew Lange in outdoor track (2018).

Other sports

The gymnastics team competes as a member of the

East Atlantic Gymnastics League The East Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL) is a collegiate women's gymnastics conference competing at the NCAA Division I level. The league comprises eight universities. Members Former members History EAGL was formed on July 31, 1995, whe ...

The men's water polo team compete as members of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference.

Discontinued teams

In July 2020, George Washington University announced plans to drop seven sports to help offset an estimated $200 million budget shortfall amid economic fallout due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

. Three NCAA sports (men’s indoor track, men’s tennis and women’s water polo) and four non-NCAA sports (men’s rowing, men’s and women’s squash, and sailing) were discontinued.

Football

George Washington University's football program ran from 1881 to 1966. The final George Washington game came on

Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...

, 1966, when the team lost to , 16–7. GW ended the season with a 4–6 record (conference: 4–3) and Jim Camp was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year. On January 19, 1967, the Board of Trustees voted to end the football program. Poor game attendance and the expense of the program contributed to the decision. A former GW player, Harry Ledford, believed that most people were unwilling to commute into Washington, D.C., which did not have a metro rail at the time, on Friday nights to

RFK Stadium Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, commonly known as RFK Stadium and originally known as District of Columbia Stadium, is a defunct multi-purpose stadium in Washington, D.C. It is located about due east of the U.S. Capitol building, near the ...

. Additionally,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

were nationally competitive teams that drew potential suburban spectators away from GW.When we played football: the GW boys of fall, 1890-1966
, ''

The GW Hatchet ''The GW Hatchet'' is the student newspaper of the George Washington University. Founded in 1904, The Hatchet is the second-oldest continuously-running newspaper in Washington, DC, only behind ''The Washington Post''. The Hatchet is often ranked ...

'', August 30, 1999.

Facilities

''Source''

References

External links

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