The Yale Bulldogs are the
intercollegiate athletic teams that represent
Yale University
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 wo ...
, located in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two
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 championships in
women's fencing, four in
men's swimming and diving, 21 in
men's golf, one in men's hockey, one in men's lacrosse, and 16 in sailing.
Championships
NCAA team championships
Yale has 29 NCAA team national championships.
*Men's (27)
**
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 wi ...
† (21): 1897, 1898, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1915, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1936, 1943
**
Ice Hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
(1): 2013
**
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 extensively ...
(1): 2018
**
Swimming
Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...
(4): 1942, 1944, 1951, 1953
*Women's (2)
**
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 ...
(2): 1984, 1985
;Notable alumni
*
Sada Jacobson
Sada Molly Jacobson (born February 14, 1983) is an American Olympic fencer. She is the 2008 Olympic Individual Sabre silver medalist in women's sabre (one of three Olympic medals), the 2004 Olympic Individual Sabre bronze medalist in women's ...
(born 1983), Olympic fencing saber silver and bronze medalist, and 2-time NCAA champion.
† The NCAA started sponsoring the intercollegiate golf championship in 1939, but it retained the titles from the 41 championships previously conferred by the National Intercollegiate Golf Association in its records.
*see also:
**
Ivy League NCAA team championships
**
Men's sports
Baseball
Major leaguers pitcher
Craig Breslow
Craig Andrew Breslow (pronounced BREHZ-loh; born August 8, 1980) is an American baseball executive and former professional baseball pitcher in Major League Baseball. He is currently the Assistant General Manager/Vice President, Director of Pitch ...
(Oakland A's and Boston Red Sox) and catcher
Ryan Lavarnway
Ryan Cole Lavarnway ( ריאן לווארנוויי; born August 7, 1987) is an American-Israeli professional baseball catcher who is a free agent. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Oriole ...
(Boston Red Sox/Los Angeles Dodgers), among others, played baseball for the Bulldogs. Perhaps Yale's most notable baseball player, however, was future U.S. president
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
, who played for the Bulldogs in the late 1940s.
Breslow led the Ivy League with a 2.56 ERA in 2002. Lavarnway led the NCAA in
batting average
Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic.
Cricket
In cricket, a player's batting average is ...
(.467) and
slugging percentage
In baseball statistics, slugging percentage (SLG) is a measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats, through the following formula, where ''AB'' is the number of at bats for a given player, ...
(.873) in 2007, set the Ivy League hitting-streak record (25), and through 2010 held the Ivy League record in career
home run
In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...
s (33).
In August 2012, Breslow and Lavarnway, playing for the Red Sox, became the first Yale grads to be Major League teammates since 1949.
Men's basketball
The men's basketball team has been named national champion on six occasions – in 1896, 1897, 1899, and 1900 by the
Premo-Porretta Power Poll
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll is a retroactive end-of-year ranking for American college basketball teams competing in the 1895–96 through the 1947–48 seasons.
The Premo-Porretta Polls are intended to serve collectively as a source of informa ...
, which began retroactive selections with the 1895–96 season; and in 1901 and 1903 by the
Helms Athletic Foundation
The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his ownership ...
, which began retroactive selections with the 1900–01 season.
Penn and Yale played in the First College Basketball game with 5 men on a team in 1897.
Yale has won seven Ivy League championships – 1957, 1962, 1963, 2002, 2016, 2019 and 2020. It also won the
Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League
The Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League was an athletic conference for men's college basketball, beginning with the 1901–02 season and ending with the 1954–55 season. Its membership ranged from four to eight members; all of these te ...
, the forerunner to the Ivy League, eight times – 1902, 1903, 1907, 1915, 1917, 1923, 1933 and 1949.
Men's crew
Football
The
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 ...
team has competed since 1876. They have won nineteen
national championships
A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, indi ...
when the school competed in what is now known as the
FBS. They are perhaps best known for their
rivalry
A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant o ...
with
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 ...
, known as "The Game". Twenty one former players have been inducted into 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 ...
.
Men's golf
The
Yale Men's Golf Team has won 21
collegiate team championships (all except 1943 were bestowed by the National Intercollegiate Golf Association): 1897, 1898 (spring), 1902 (spring), 1905–13, 1915, 1924–26, 1931–33, 1936, 1943. They have crowned 13 individual champions: John Reid, Jr. (1898, spring), Charles Hitchcock, Jr. (1902, fall), Robert Abbott (1905), W. E. Clow, Jr. (1906), Ellis Knowles (1907),
Robert Hunter (1910), George Stanley (1911), Nathaniel Wheeler (1913), Francis Blossom (1915),
Jess Sweetser
Jesse William Sweetser (April 18, 1902 – May 27, 1989) was an amateur golfer, best known as the first American-born player to win the British Amateur.
Early life
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Sweetser later attended Phillips Exeter Academy and ...
(1920), Dexter Cummings (1923, 1924), Tom Aycock (1929). Both are records. They have won 10
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
championships since the League championship was started in 1975: 1984–85, 1988, 1990–91, 1996–97, 2003, 2011, 2018. Both the Men's and Women's Golf Teams play out of the
Yale Golf Course
The Yale Golf Course, or Yale University Golf Course, is a golf course in New Haven, Connecticut, owned and operated by Yale University. Yale is home to the men and women's Yale Golf Team and hosts three collegiate invitational tournaments eac ...
which has been ranked the best collegiate golf course in the country by Golfweek.com as well as other news outlets.
Men's ice hockey
The Yale Men's Ice Hockey team is the oldest existing