The Haverford Fords compete at the
NCAA Division III
NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their stu ...
level in the
Centennial Conference
The Centennial Conference is an athletic conference which competes in the NCAA's Division III. Member teams are located in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Eleven private colleges compose the Centennial Conference. Five of ten members of the Centenn ...
. The program has a modest history in collegiate athletics. Haverford boasts the only
varsity cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
team in the United States. Its men's and women's
track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...
and
cross country teams are perennial powerhouses in their division. The outdoor track and field team won the first 16 Centennial Conference championships, and men's cross country has won all but two Centennial Conference championships. The soccer team is among the nation's oldest, having won its first intercollegiate match in 1905 against
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
. The lacrosse team has placed well nationally in the NCAA championships, while Haverford's
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
team has competed since the early 1930s.
Athletic teams
Tennis
Haverford has a long tradition of producing great tennis players. Recently, the team has been known for recruiting the most athletes from the state of Hawaii out of all NCAA varsity athletic teams.
Cricket
Haverford boasts the only
varsity cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
team in the United States, and ''
ESPN Magazine
''ESPN The Magazine'' was an American monthly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998. Initially published every other week, it scaled back to 24 issues a year i ...
'' has called Haverford "the epicenter of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
's cricket craze". The team, which was started in 1833, is generally accepted as the first cricket club exclusively for Americans.
Haverford has a strong rivalry with the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
's club team. The first match in this series was played in 1864 and has been believed to be the third-oldest intercollegiate contest in America, after the 1852
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
-
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
crew and 1859
Amherst Amherst may refer to:
People
* Amherst (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Earl Amherst of Arracan in the East Indies, a title in the British Peerage; formerly ''Baron Amherst''
* Baron Amherst of Hackney of the City of London, ...
-
Williams baseball matches. The
Intercollegiate Cricket Association existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (1881–1924), and Haverford won its championship 19 times (1884,
1890 (tie), 1892 (tie),
1893,
1895,
1896,
1898, 1902, 1903 (tie), 1904,
1905,
1906 (tie),
1910, 1915,
1916,
1919, 1922 (tie), 1923, 1924).
Haverford's current team has a heavy contingent of students of South Asian heritage, and the XI team regularly travels to
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge, the two oldest, wealthiest, and most famous universities in the United Kingdom. The term is used to refer to them collectively, in contrast to other British universities, and more broadly to de ...
for games. The current coach is
Kamran Khan, former player for the
United States national cricket team
The United States national cricket team is the team that represents the United States in international cricket. The team was formerly organised by the United States of America Cricket Association (USACA), which became an associate member of ...
from 1979 to 1990 and President of the
United States of America Cricket Association
The United States of America Cricket Association (USACA), headquartered at Miami Beach, was the national governing body for all cricket in the United States, until it was replaced by USA Cricket in 2019. The board was formed in 1965.
USACA wa ...
from 1999 to 2000. He has coached Haverford's cricket team since 1974.
Track and cross country
The men's and women's
track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...
and
cross country teams are perennial powerhouses in their division. The men's outdoor track and field team won the first 16 Centennial Conference championships, while the men's cross country team has won all but two Centennial Conference championships, reclaiming the title from Dickinson in the 2010 fall season. In the 2010
NCAA
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 an ...
National Cross Country Championship, the men's team finished first, its highest finish ever and the only NCAA championship ever won by any Haverford team. The women's team recently captured at least four consecutive conference titles. In 1997,
Karl Paranya
Karl Paranya (born June 27, 1975) was the first NCAA Division III track and field athlete to break 4 minutes for the mile. He did this in the spring of 1997, running 3:57.6 on Haverford College's outdoor track. Marcus O'Sullivan, one of three m ...
'97 became the first (and only)
Division III
In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below.
Association football
*Belgian Thir ...
athlete to run a four-minute mile, clocking 3:57.6. The history of Haverford track also includes former team captain
Philip Noel-Baker
Philip John Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker, (1 November 1889 – 8 October 1982), born Philip John Baker, was a British politician, diplomat, academic, athlete, and renowned campaigner for disarmament. He carried the British team flag and won a ...
1908, who later captained
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
's
1924 Olympic team, upon which the movie ''
Chariots of Fire
''Chariots of Fire'' is a 1981 British historical sports drama film directed by Hugh Hudson, written by Colin Welland and produced by David Puttnam. It is based on the true story of two British athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a de ...
'' is based, and became a
Nobel peace prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
winner years later in 1959. Also of note is former captain Andrew Lanham, a winner of the 2010
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
. Three Haverford runners have won individual Division III men's cross country national championships: Seamus McElligott in 1990, JB Haglund in 2001, and Anders Hulleberg in 2010.
Soccer
Haverford's
soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
team, the nation's oldest, won the first match of the newly-formed Intercollegiate Soccer Football League in 1905, beating
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
. It is of interest that
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
's team was founded by a Haverford alumnus during his graduate education there. Haverford soccer squads were named national intercollegiate champions three times by the
Intercollegiate Soccer Football Association
The NCAA held its first men's National Collegiate Soccer Championship in 1959, with eight teams selected for the tournament. Before 1959, national champions were selected by a committee of the Intercollegiate Soccer Football Association (ISFA) ba ...
in 1911, 1915 and 1917. This was well prior to the NCAA's inaugural post-season national championship tournament, which began in 1959. The men's soccer team won its first NCAA playoff game in 1980, defeating
Elizabethtown College
Elizabethtown College (informally E-town) is a private college in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.
History
Founding and early years
Founded in 1899, Elizabethtown College is one of many higher learning institutions founded in the 19th century by c ...
4-3. In 2013, both the men's and women's soccer teams were crowned Centennial Conference Champions. While the men's team defeated Wesleyan College in the first round of the 2013 NCAA tournament, the women's team lost to MIT in the first round. The 2015 season was the most successful in the history of Haverford men's soccer, as the team won the Centennial Conference championship and advanced to the NCAA playoff's Elite Eight.
Lacrosse
The Haverford men's lacrosse team has fallen from its national power status. After defeating Gettysburg College in 2009 and 2010, qualifying for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 NCAA tournaments, advancing to the 2010 NCAA tournament quarterfinals (where it took Salisbury University into overtime) and registering other high profile wins, the team has in recent years struggled. The current head coach is Nick Taylor who has been at the helm for three seasons. Former head coach Brendan Dawson is now the head coach of the
Haverford School
, motto_translation =
, address = 450 Lancaster Avenue
, location =
, region =
, city = Haverford Township, Haverford
, county =
, state ...
. Former head coach Colin Bathory is an alumnus of the College. Former head coach Mike Murphy is now the head coach of the
Penn Quakers men's lacrosse
The Penn Quakers men's lacrosse team represents the University of Pennsylvania in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse. Penn competes as a member of the Ivy League and plays its home games at Franklin Field in ...
.
Fencing
The
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
team has competed since the early 1930s and is a member of both the Middle Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association (MACFA) and the
National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association
The National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA) is a women's collegiate fencing organization in the United States. The organization was founded as the IWFA in 1929 by two New York University students, Julia Jones and Dorothy Hafne ...
(NIWFA). Recently retired coach, David Littell, fenced in the 1988 Olympics in
Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...
,
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
. In 2007, the Haverford fencing team fenced an undefeated MACFA season (a school record, since repeated in 2010) and won its third championship. Other championships were won in 1983 and 2004. The current Haverford coach is Chris Spencer, formerly head coach of
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.
...
. Under Spencer the Haverford team has become a top Division III program, defeating Division I teams such as
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
and
UNC. Haverford won three consecutive MACFA championships in 2010-2012.
Volleyball
The women's volleyball team competed in the NCAA tournament in 2006 and 2007 after winning its first Centennial Conference titles. In 2007, the team hosted the regional NCAA tournament, where it advanced to the regional championship, ultimately losing to the defending national champion, Juniata.
Basketball
The first intercollegiate basketball game played east of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
occurred in Ryan Gym (now a lounging area for students) in 1895 between
Haverford and
Temple University
Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...
. A former varsity star is
Hunter R. Rawlings III
Hunter Ripley Rawlings III (born December 14, 1944) is an American classics scholar and academic administrator. He is best known for serving as the 17th President of the University of Iowa from 1987 until 1995 and as the 10th President of Cornell ...
, the former president of
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
.
Baseball
The New York Times called Haverford a pipeline to a front-office career in professional baseball, with a focus on
sabermetrics
Sabermetrics, or originally SABRmetrics, is the empirical analysis of baseball, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity. Sabermetricians collect and summarize the relevant data from this in-game activity to answer specific ques ...
(advanced statistics). As of summer 2015, it notes, "there are about 15 to 20 Haverford graduates working in prominent baseball-related jobs, as front-office executives, agents and talent evaluators." The current head coach is Dave Beccaria, an alumnus of and former junior varsity head coach at Johns Hopkins.
Football
Haverford used to have a football team, starting in 1879.
[https://tripod.swarthmore.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=01TRI_INST:SC&search_scope=SC_All&tab=Everything&docid=alma991012377669704921] The team was rivals with
Swarthmore.
National championships
Team
References
{{Centennial Conference navbox
Cricket in Pennsylvania