The Wayne State Wildcats are the athletic teams that represent

Wayne State College Wayne State College is a public college in Wayne, Nebraska. It is part of the Nebraska State College System and enrolls 4,202 students. The college opened as a public normal school in 1910 after the state purchased the private Nebraska Normal Co ...

, located in

Wayne, Nebraska Wayne is a city in Wayne County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 5,660 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Wayne County and the home of Wayne State College. History Wayne was founded in 1881 when the Chicago, St. Paul, Minn ...

, in intercollegiate sports at the Division II level 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), primarily competing in the

Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level, which operates in the western Midwestern United States. Nine of its ...

(NSIC) in all sports since the 1999–2000 academic year. The Wildcats previously competed in the Central States Intercollegiate Conference (CSIC) 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 st ...

(NAIA) from 1976–77 to 1988–89; as well as in the

Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC), commonly known as the Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC) from approximately 1910 through the late 1960s, is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (N ...

(RMAC) as a provisional member during the 1989–90 school year.

Varsity teams

History

The college began participating in athletics in 1912, when the football program began. Men's basketball and track and field began around the same time. These were the main sports up to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, when Wayne State was a member of the

Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Association (NIAA) was an intercollegiate athletic conference that existed from 1928 to 1942. The league comprised public state colleges in the state of Nebraska.Nebraska College Conference The Nebraska College Conference (NCC), known as the Nebraska Intercollegiate Conference from 1916 to 1926 and later as the Nebraska College Athletic Conference (NCAC), was an intercollegiate athletic conference that existed from 1916 to 1976. The l ...

(NCC) and Wayne State began to compete in baseball, cross country, golf, swimming, tennis, wrestling, and for a short period, boxing. Before 1980, cross country, golf, indoor track and field, swimming, tennis, and wrestling were dropped. In 1997, women's soccer was added to the athletics program.

List of teams

Wayne State competes in 15 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football and track & field (indoor and outdoor); while women's sports include basketball, beach volleyball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, track & field (indoor and outdoor) and volleyball.

Individual sports

Football

Wayne State began its football program in 1912. In 1970, the team played in a bowl game; it would not do this again until 2007. From 1999, when it joined the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, through 2018, the team went 93–128–0 () . Through the 2018 season, Wayne State sports an all-time record of 425–485–40 (). Four players off the 1993 team went on to play professional football. Brett Salisbury was the starting quarterback for the Helsinki Giants in Helsinki, Finland. Damon Thomas was an NFL free agent pick-up by the Buffalo Bills.

Brad Ottis Brad Allen Ottis (born August 2, 1972) is a former defensive end in the National Football League. He played for the Los Angeles/St.Louis Rams and the Arizona Cardinals. Ottis played on the same Wayne State College football team as Byron Chamber ...

was a second-round draft choice of the Los Angeles Rams. He also played for the Arizona Cardinals for a few years. Byron Chamberlain was a seventh round draft pick of the Denver Broncos in 1995 and later became a Pro Bowl tight end with the Minnesota Vikings in 2001. No other team in Wayne State history has put more players into professional football. The 1993 WSC football team was inducted into the WSC Athletics Hall of Fame on October 5, 2002. In 2008, it reached the D-II National Playoffs for the first time; it lost in the first round to

Chadron State College Chadron State College is a public college in Chadron, Nebraska, US. It is one of three public colleges in the Nebraska State College System. It has open admission and an acceptance rate of 100%. According to College Factual, it has a six-year g ...

(Nebraska). In 2011, they defeated Minnesota-Duluth at Bob Cunningham Field in Wayne; this marked the first time that the Wildcats had won a game against a #1-ranked team.

Softball

Wayne State's softball team appeared in five consecutive

Women's College World Series The Women's College World Series (WCWS) is the final portion of the NCAA Division I softball tournament for college softball in the United States. Eight teams participate in the WCWS, which begins with a double-elimination tournament. In other wo ...

, in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974.

References

External links

* {{Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference navbox