The Wabash Little Giants are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent

Wabash College Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cu ...

, a small private school for men in

Crawfordsville, Indiana Crawfordsville is a city in Montgomery County in west central Indiana, United States, west by northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,306. The city is the county seat of Montgomery County, the only char ...

, United States. The college belongs to 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 ...

and participates in Division III sports. The Little Giants compete as members of the

North Coast Athletic Conference The North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) is an NCAA Division III athletic conference composed of colleges located in Ohio and Indiana. When founded in 1984, the league was a pioneer in gender equality, offering competition in a then-unpreced ...

(NCAC). Despite the college's small enrollment and that it is "not a jock school", the Little Giants have had success in several sports. The most popular among Wabash fans are

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 ...

and

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 ...

. The Little Giants also have a well-respected cross-country team.''

Yale Daily News The ''Yale Daily News'' is an independent student newspaper published by Yale University students in New Haven, Connecticut since January 28, 1878. It is the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States. The ''Yale Daily News'' has consis ...

'' staff
''The Insider's Guide to the Colleges''
p. 337,

Macmillan Publishers Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...

, 2004, . In football, Wabash has an important

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 ...

with

DePauw University DePauw University is a private liberal arts university in Greencastle, Indiana. It has an enrollment of 1,972 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the ...

, and each season they meet for the Monon Bell Classic. Wabash and DePauw compete annually to win the trophy, the Monon Bell, and as of 2015 the two teams have played 122 games in the series with Wabash holding a 60-53-9 advantage. The Little Giants currently sponsor 12 varsity teams. Volleyball is the newest sport, having been added for the 2021 season (2020–21 school year); since the NCAC only sponsors volleyball for women, that team plays in the single-sport

Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League The Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League (MCVL) is an intercollegiate men's volleyball conference associated with the NCAA's Division III. History The MCVL was founded in March 2014 by an amicable split of the Continental Volleyball Conference ( ...

Football

In 1884, Wabash played its first game of

intercollegiate football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most o ...

when it defeated a team from

Butler University Butler University is a private university in Indianapolis, Indiana. Founded in 1855 and named after founder Ovid Butler, the university has over 60 major academic fields of study in six colleges: the Lacy School of Business, College of Communic ...

on October 25, 4–0. The first intercollegiate game in the state took place on May 31, between Butler and

. From the 1890s to the 1910s, the Wabash football team played schedules against many much larger colleges, such as

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...

and

Purdue Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mo ...

, against whom the Little Giants occasionally won impressive upsets. For instance Wabash won all five games against Purdue between 1906 and 1911.The Little Giants
(PDF), ''College Football Historical Society Newsletter'', vol. 19, no. 4, p. 5, August 2006.

Basketball

Wabash College began varsity intercollegiate competition in men's basketball in 1897. Wabash was retroactively recognized as the pre- NCAA Tournament national champion for the 1905–06 and 1907–08 seasons 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 ...

. The 1922 National Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament was the first national championship tournament ever held in intercollegiate basketball. The 1921–22 Wabash College team won the championship game, 43–23, over

Kalamazoo College Kalamazoo College, also known as Kalamazoo, K College, KC or simply K, is a private liberal arts college in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Founded in 1833 by Baptist ministers as the Michigan and Huron Institute, Kalamazoo is the oldest private college in ...

. Wabash finished with a season record of 21–3, winning all three tournament games in convincing fashion. They were coached by Robert E. "Pete" Vaughan and their players were Fred Adam, Paul Schanlaub, Lon Goldsberry, John Burns, and Clyde Grater. Wabash also won the 1982 NCAA Division III championship. Coached by Mac Petty (whose name now adorns the Chadwick Court floor) and captained by Mike Holcomb and future NFL star Pete Metzelaars, rolled their way to a 23-4 season. They were considered an inexperienced squad (their captains being the only seniors) coming into the season. They did win their opener in Greencastle against rival DePauw in a comeback effort, 63-62. Of the four games they lost, only one was to another Division III school,

Hope College Hope College is a private Christian liberal arts college in Holland, Michigan. It was originally opened in 1851 as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants four years after the community was first settled. The first freshman college class matricu ...

, in a thrilling overtime game in Crawfordsville. The other three were to Division I

Louisiana Tech Louisiana Tech University (Louisiana Tech, La. Tech, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activi ...

and UT San Antonio and Division II

Texas A&I Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...

. The team finished the year on a 19-game winning streak. Along the way, they broke Rose-Hulman's 12-game win streak, defeating the Engineers 100-51. The team received their NCAA bid the next day. They closed the regular season defeating DePauw by 10 in Crawfordsville. In the regional tournament, Wabash first met Ohio Northern and rode Metzelaars' 30 point effort to an easy 81-61 win. Next up, the Little Giants were able to avenge their only Division III loss of the season against Hope, winning 82-70. The next two games did not come so easily, squeezing out a 54-51 win against Augustana and sweating out a 68-64 win against Stanislaus State. Wabash then faced defending champion Potsdam State. The champs had no answer for Metzelaars, however, as he poured in 45 points en route to an 83-62 victory. It was the largest margin of victory in the championship at the time.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://sports.wabash.edu/