The Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens are the athletic teams of the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

(UD) of Newark,

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

, in the United States. The Blue Hens compete in the

Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Bowl Subdivision (F ...

(FCS) of Division I of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA) as members of the

Coastal Athletic Association The Coastal Athletic Association (CAA), formerly the ECAC South Conference and the Colonial Athletic Association, is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA' ...

and its technically separate football league, CAA Football. On November 28, 2023, UD and

Conference USA Conference USA (CUSA) is a collegiate athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas. Mem ...

(CUSA) jointly announced that UD would start a transition to the Division I

Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

(FBS) in 2024 and join CUSA in 2025. UD will continue to compete in both sides of the CAA in 2024–25; it will be ineligible for the FCS playoffs due to NCAA rules for transitioning programs, but will be eligible for all non-football CAA championships. Upon joining CUSA, UD will be eligible for all conference championship events except the football championship game; it will become eligible for that event upon completing the FBS transition in 2026. At the same time, UD also announced it would add one women's sport due to

Title IX Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receiv ...

considerations, and would also be seeking conference homes for the seven sports that UD sponsors but CUSA does not. The new women's sport would later be announced as ice hockey; UD will join

Atlantic Hockey America Atlantic Hockey America (AHA) is a college ice hockey conference which operates primarily in the northeastern United States. It participates in NCAA Division I as an ice hockey-only conference. The conference was formed in 2023 by the merger of ...

for its first season of varsity play in 2025–26.

Sports sponsored

The Blue Hens have won twenty-two team CAA Championships since joining in 2001. In January 2011, UD announced that men's cross country and outdoor track & field teams would be reclassified to club status, while women's golf would be added. On November 20, 2016, the Delaware women's field hockey team won the 2016 NCAA Division I championship, defeating North Carolina, 3–2.

Women's basketball

The 2000–01 Delaware team finished 26–5 overall and 17–1 in the

America East Conference The America East Conference (AmEast) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I whose members are located in the Northeastern United States. The conference is headquartered in Boston, Massachu ...

(where they were members from 1991 to 2001, before joining the CAA), and finished first in the regular season and won the conference tournament to qualify for their first NCAA bid. In the 2001 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament, they lost to the NC State Wolfpack team coached by the late Hall of Fame women's coach

Kay Yow Sandra Kay Yow (March 14, 1942 – January 24, 2009) was an American basketball coach. She was the head coach of the NC State Wolfpack women's basketball team from 1975 to 2009. A member of the Naismith Hall of Fame, she had more than 700 ca ...

76–57 in the first round. The 2006–07 Delaware team finished 26–5 overall and 16–2 in the CAA (3rd place) and earned a bid to the 2007 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament where they lost to the

Michigan State Spartans The Michigan State Spartans are the athletic teams that represent Michigan State University. The school's athletic program includes 23 Varsity team, varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a Spartan Army, Spartan warrior named Sparty, and the sc ...

coached by Joanne P. McCallie, who went on to coach at

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

from 2007-2020, by a score of 69–58. The women's basketball team went undefeated in CAA play in the 2011–12 and 2012–13 seasons under head coach Tina Martin and All-American and future two-time

WNBA MVP The Women's National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player (MVP) is an annual Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) award given since the league's inaugural season in 1997. MVP voting takes place immediately following the regular ...

Elena Delle Donne Elena Delle Donne (born September 5, 1989) is an American former professional basketball player for 10 seasons as a member of the Washington Mystics and Chicago Sky. Delle Donne played college basketball for the Delaware Blue Hens from 2009 to ...

. The 2011–12 team finished went 31–2 and undefeated in CAA play (18–0) to win the conference championship. They also won the CAA tournament to qualify for the CAA's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, where the Fightin' Blue Hens won their first-round game against Arkansas–Little Rock 73–42 before losing in the second round to

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

70–64. This win over UALR was the first by a Delaware women's team in NCAA tournament history. The 2012–13 team finished 32–4 overall, ranked #15 in the final AP poll. The 2012–13 team went undefeated in CAA play and also won the CAA tournament to qualify for the CAA's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, where the Blue Hens won their first and second-round games against

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

(66–53) and

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

(78–69) before losing in the round of 16 to

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

(69–62). The 2012–23 team featured three seniors — Delle Donne (3,039 points, 5th all time in women's college basketball and a record at Delaware), Lauren Carra, and Danielle Parker (1,064 rebounds, also a career record at Delaware) — who scored 1,000 points during their careers, and point guard specialist Kayla Miller. This senior class, which includes Chelsea Craig and Jaquetta May, won more games (104) than any senior class in Delaware women's basketball history, and won two CAA championships. Delaware women's cumulative NCAA tournament record is 3–4, the three wins being by the group of seniors

, Lauren Carra, Danielle Parker, Kayla Miller, Chelsea Craig and Jaquetta May who won 104 games together (some missing some games due to injuries).

Men's basketball

Football

Football is the most popular and most successful sport at Delaware. The Fighting Blue Hens football teams have won six national titles, including the 2003

NCAA Division I Football Championship The NCAA Division I Football Championship is an annual post-season college football game, played since 2006, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). From 1978 to 2005, the game was ca ...

. In

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

, the Delaware Blue Hens returned to the championship game, but were defeated by defending champion Appalachian State. In

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

they were once again runners-up, that time to

Eastern Washington Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane (the second largest city in the state), the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the H ...

. Former head football coaches

Bill Murray William James Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor and comedian, known for his deadpan delivery in roles ranging from studio comedies to independent dramas. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Bill Murra ...

, Dave Nelson and Harold "Tubby" Raymond are College Football Hall of Fame inductees. Delaware is one of only two schools to have three straight head coaches inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame (

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

is the other).

Lacrosse

Delaware's first non-football NCAA National Championship came in 1983 for Women's Division I Lacrosse. The 2007 men's lacrosse program reached the final four of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in its history.

Soccer

The men's soccer team played in the 1968 and 1970 editions of the College Cup.

Women's ice hockey

In December 2023 it was announced Delaware would add one women's sport due to

considerations. The new women's sport would later be announced as ice hockey, and Delaware was initially announced to be joining

College Hockey America College Hockey America (CHA) was a college ice hockey conference in the United States. It participated in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The conference's final membership featured six women's teams, with three in Pennsylvani ...

(CHA) for its first season of varsity play in 2025–26. However, by that time, CHA had already announced plans to merge with the men-only Atlantic Hockey Association after the 2023–24 season. In March 2024, Allison Coomey was named the inaugural head coach. On April 30, 2024, the merged conference was unveiled as

, with Delaware joining on the previously announced 2025–26 schedule.

Championships

NCAA national team championships

Delaware has won three NCAA Division I national team championships and one NCAA Division II national team championship:
:Men (2) :*

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

''(Division I)'' (1): 2003 :*

''(Division II)'' (1): 1979 :Women (2) :*

Field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

(1): 2016 :*

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact 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 w ...

(1): 1983

Other national team championships

Below are 13 national team titles that were not bestowed by the NCAA: :Men (4) :* AP College Division Football National Champions (3): 1946, 1971, 1972 :*

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...

College Division Football National Champions (3): 1963, 1971, 1972 :Women (3) :*

AIAW The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was a college athletics organization in the United States, founded in 1971 to govern women's college competitions in the country and to administer national championships (see AIAW Cham ...

''(Division II)'' (2): 1981, 1982 :* IHSA

Equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or riding in British English) Examples of this are: *Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes in ...

(1): 1997 :Coed (6) :*

Figure skating Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, with its introduction occurring at the Figure skating at the 1908 Summer Olympi ...

(6): 2002, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

Coastal Athletic Association conference team championships

Below are 33 CAA conference team titles that the Blue Hens have won since joining the CAA in 2001: :Men (12) :*Baseball (1): 2017 :*

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

(2): 2014, 2022 :*

(2): 2010, 2021 (spring) :*Lacrosse (5): 2007, 2010, 2011, 2022, 2023 :*

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

(2): 2011, 2016 :Women (21) :*

(3): 2012, 2013, 2022 :*Field Hockey (11): 2004, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 :*Golf (2): 2016, 2017 :*Outdoor Track & Field (1): 2014 :*Volleyball (5): 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2023

Notable non varsity sports

Figure skating

Men's ice hockey

The men's ice hockey team is a club level

college ice hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the go ...

program that plays its home games at the Fred Rust Ice Arena. The Fightin' Blue Hens are a member of the

Eastern States Collegiate Hockey League The Eastern States Collegiate Hockey League (ESCHL) is a collegiate hockey conference at the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) Division I level. The league was created in 2017 and is made up of eight teams located in the Northeast and ...

, which plays at the

American Collegiate Hockey Association The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) is a college ice hockey association. The ACHA's purpose is to be an organization of collegiate affiliated programs, which provides structure, regulates operations, and promotes quality in collegi ...

Division I level. The Blue Hens won the 2012 ACHA Division 1 National Championship on March 7, 2012.

Men's crew

The men's club crew team was founded alongside the women's crew team by Coach Chuck Crawford, already well known for his 1972 World Championship in the Men's Lightweight 8+ and successful coaching career at Saint Joseph's Preparatory. The team has gained prominence in recent years, winning the Dad Vail Regatta lightweight freshmen eight event in 1993, 1994, and 2012 with the varsity lightweight eight winning bronze in 1994, and gold in 2013 and 2015. Since then, the lightweight program has gained national recognition; however, they are no longer racing via invitation in the

Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges The Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) is a college athletic conference of fifteen men's college rowing crews. It is an affiliate of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). Members Fifteen colleges and universities are membe ...

' championship, the EARC Sprints. For the heavyweight men, the varsity have reached the finals of the Dad Vail Regatta in 1994, 1995, 1996, 2006, 2010, and 2011 with the crews medaling in 1994, 1996, 2010, and 2011. The heavyweight freshmen won the Dad Vails title in 2008 and followed that with a silver in 2009 and a bronze in 2010.

Rugby

Founded in 1972, the University of Delaware Rugby Football Club plays in the East Conference of Division 1-A. Delaware are led by head coach Bjorn Haglid. Delaware reached the quarterfinals of the 2012 Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC), the highest profile

college rugby College rugby is played by men and women throughout colleges and universities in the United States. Seven-a-side and fifteen-a-side variants of rugby union are most commonly played. Most collegiate rugby programs do not fall under the auspices of ...

tournament in the country. The CRC is broadcast live on NBC, and is held every June at PPL Park in Philadelphia. Delaware reached the semifinals of the 2011 Las Vegas Invitational, the largest amateur rugby competition in the US, where they were led by star player Jimmy Kowalski. Delaware participated in the 2012 USA Rugby Sevens Collegiate National Championships where they finished third. The rugby team was suspended by the university for five years after a 2013 I'm Shmacked party went out of control.

Nickname

The athletic teams at Delaware are known as the Fightin' Blue Hens with a mascot named

YoUDee YoUDee (pronounced yoo-dee) is a mascot of the University of Delaware, along with Baby Blue. It is an anthropomorphic "fighting Blue Hen", and its species is the blue hen, as the state bird of Delaware. While YoUDee appears masculine and can have ...

. YoUDee is a

Blue Hen Chicken The Delaware Blue Hen or Blue Hen of Delaware is a blue strain of American gamecock. Under the name Blue Hen Chicken it is the official bird of the State of Delaware. It is the emblem or mascot of several institutions in the state, among them t ...

, after the team names and the state bird of

. YoUDee was elected into the mascot hall of fame in 2006 and is a seven-time UCA Open Division Mascot National Champion. At times, Delaware is also referred to as The Ass Kickin' Chickens.

Intrastate competition

In November 2007, it was announced that the University of Delaware and

Delaware State University Delaware State University (DSU or Del State) is a Statutory college#Outside New York State, privately governed, state-assisted Historically black colleges and universities, historically black Land-grant university, land-grant research universi ...

would have their first football game against each other, the game being in the first round of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The game was played on November 23, with University of Delaware winning 44–7. Delaware was the victor in the teams' nine regular season match-ups (2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, and spring 2021).

Fight song

"The Delaware Fight Song" first appeared in the Student Handbook in 1933. It was composed by alumnus George F. Kelly (Class of 1915).

Footnotes

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , titlestyle = {{CollegePrimaryStyle, Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens, color=white , list = {{Coastal Athletic Association navbox {{Conference USA navbox {{Atlantic Hockey America {{Atlantic Sun Conference navbox {{Mid-American Conference navbox {{Delaware sports {{Philadelphia Sports