The Muhlenberg Mules are the collegiate athletic teams of

Muhlenberg College Muhlenberg College is a private liberal arts college in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg College is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and is named for Henry Muhlenberg, the German patriarch of Luthe ...

in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The college competes in

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 st ...

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). Muhlenberg has 22 intercollegiate sports, which belong to either 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 ...

Eastern College Athletic Conference The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 15 sports (13 men's and 13 women's). It has 220 member institutions in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III, ranging in location fr ...

(ECAC). Both men's and women's teams exist for

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, cross country,

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

, soccer,

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

, and

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 eve ...

. Men's teams exist for

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, football, and

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

; women have teams for

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

, and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

Facilities

The football, field hockey, and track and field teams each play their home games at Scotty Wood Stadium, a 3,000-capacity stadium built in 1999 on the Muhlenberg College campus at 3400 West Chew Street. The basketball, wrestling, and volleyball teams play at

Memorial Hall A memorial hall is a hall built to commemorate an individual or group; most commonly those who have died in war. Most are intended for public use and are sometimes described as ''utilitarian memorials''. History of the Memorial Hall In the aft ...

, an indoor arena located on the campus at 2346 Liberty Street. Additional athletic facilities were built west of the field house in 1999. Updated tennis courts were built in 2003, and two fields were added in 1997 and 1998. The baseball and softball teams do not have on-campus facilities.

Football

1900 to 1945

In 1900, Muhlenberg launched its football program, which was the college's first varsity sport. In 1925, Haps Benfer became Muhlenberg head football coach, and the team finished the 1925 season 6-3-1. From 1936 to 1945,

Doggie Julian Alvin Fred "Doggie" Julian (April 5, 1901 – July 28, 1967) was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He served as the head basketball coach at Muhlenberg College from 1936 to 1945, at the College of the Holy Cross fr ...

was head coach. He recorded a career record of 56–49–2. Julian was also head basketball coach during this time and, from 1942 to 1944, head baseball coach.

1946 to 1997

In 1946,

Ben Schwartzwalder Floyd Burdette Schwartzwalder (June 2, 1909 – April 28, 1993) was a Hall of Fame football coach at Syracuse University, where he trained future National Football League stars such as Jim Brown, Larry Csonka, Floyd Little and Ernie Davis, t ...

became head football coach. In his first season, he guided the Mules to a 9–1 record and a national championship with Muhlenberg defeating St. Bonaventure University in the

Tobacco Bowl The Tobacco Bowl (or Tobacco Festival Bowl) was a college football bowl game that was held in Richmond, Virginia from 1949 to 1982. It was not a postseason bowl game, and it typically featured regional teams from Virginia, North Carolina and South ...

. The following year, in the 1947 season, Schwartzwalder again led the Mules to a 9–1 record; the season's only loss came by one point, in a 7–6 loss at

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

. The Mules declined an invitation that season to appear in the Tangerine Bowl. In 1949, Schwartzwalder departed to coach Syracuse.

1997 to 2018

Mike Donnelly became the head football coach in 1997. Despite a 1–9 inaugural season, Donnelly turned the team around; from 2000 to 2004, the Mules won five straight

championships and earned five straight postseason berths. In 2007, the Mules again won the Centennial Conference and received another berth in the NCAA playoffs, winning their first-round game before falling in the second round. Donnelly's team won the Centennial Conference again in 2008 and earned a playoff berth, but lost in the playoff's first round. In 2010, they returned to the playoffs with the same result. Since the 2000 season, Muhlenberg has compiled a 66–28 overall record in the Centennial Conference, second best among all active and former members behind only

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. Seven times in the 2000s, the Muhlenberg football team won the Centennial Conference championship.

2018 to present

Nate Milne became Muhlenberg's head football coach in the 2018 season. He has a 35–5 record over his first three seasons. In 2019, he was named

AFCA Coach of the Year Award The AFCA Coach of the Year Award is given annually to a college football coach by the American Football Coaches Association The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) is an association of over 11,000 American football coaches and staff ...

for

Club teams

In addition to its 22 NCAA teams, Muhlenberg has sports club teams in

ultimate frisbee Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...

and

women's rugby Women's rugby union is a full contact team sport based on running with the ball in hand. The same laws are used in men's rugby union with the same sized pitch and same equipment. Rugby was originally a men's sport, and women's rugby has become p ...

References

External links

* {{Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg College