The Oklahoma City Stars are the athletic teams that represent

Oklahoma City University Oklahoma City University (OCU) is a private university historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The university offers undergraduate bachelor's degrees, graduate master's degrees and docto ...

, located in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

, in the U.S. state of

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for higher education, colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic schola ...

(NAIA), primarily competing in the

Sooner Athletic Conference The Sooner Athletic Conference (SAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Originally developed as a five-team conference of Oklahoma-based schools, the SAC now boasts 13 ...

(SAC) for most of its sports since the 1986–87 academic year. The Stars previously competed at the

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

ranks, primarily competing in the Midwestern City Conference (MCC; now known as the Horizon League) from 1979–80 to 1984–85; in the D-I

Trans America Athletic Conference The Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Division I FCS level in 2022. ...

(TAAC; now known as the Atlantic Sun Conference) during the 1978–79 school year, and as a Division I independent prior to that. Its women's wrestling team competed in the Women's College Wrestling Association (WCWA).

Conference affiliations

NCAA *

(1978–1979) *

Horizon League The Horizon League is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the league's eleven member schools are located in ...

(1979–1986) NAIA *

(1986–present)

Varsity teams

OCU competes in 16 intercollegiate varsity sports:

Men's basketball

Oklahoma City University has won 6 NAIA National Championships: 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2007, and 2008. Oklahoma City University has made 18 NAIA tournament appearances: 1987, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010. As a member of the NCAA, Oklahoma City University went to the NCAA tournament 11 times, the most of any school no longer a member of the NCAA (1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1973.) Oklahoma City University appeared in the NIT twice, in 1959 and 1968.

Baseball

Oklahoma City has had 71

Major League Baseball Draft The Major League Baseball draft (officially the Rule 4 Draft; also known as the first-year player draft or amateur draft) is the primary mechanism by which Major League Baseball (MLB) assigns amateur baseball players from high schools, colleg ...

selections since the draft began in 1965.

Spirit squads

OCU fields a

pom squad A dance squad or dance team, sometimes called a pom squad or song team, is a team that participates in competitive dance. A dance squad can also include: a jazz squad, ballet squad, or any kind of religion dance squad. Dance squads are a type of ...

, a

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense Physical exercise, physical activity. It can be performed to motivate s ...

squad, and a

stunt A stunt is an unusual, difficult, dramatic physical feat that may require a special skill, performed for artistic purposes usually for a public audience, as on television or in theaters or cinema. Stunts are a feature of many action films. Befo ...

team OCU has won the NCA/NAIA National Invitational/Championships in the following years: NCA: All-Girl NAIA: ''2012, 2013'' Small Coed NAIA: ''2014, 2015, 2016'' Large Coed NAIA: ''2011, 2012, 2013, 2014'' NAIA: Competitive Cheer Invitational: ''2014'' NAIA Competitive Cheer National Championship: ''2017, 2021'' OCU has won the National Dance Alliance Championships in the following divisions: NDA NAIA Large: 2011, 2013 NDA NAIA Small: 2016 NDA Division III Hip Hop: 2016 OCU Dance won the NAIA Invitational in 2014

Former sports

Football

Oklahoma City's football program and head coach Os Doenges made multiple innovative attempts to improving the game. The first and most successful innovation was credited to opposing coach

Dike Beede Dwight Vincent "Dike" Beede (January 23, 1903 – December 10, 1972) was an American college football player and coach. He served as the first head football coach at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania in 1926, Geneva College in ...

when the football team played in the 1941 Oklahoma City vs. Youngstown football game. This game marks the first

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

game to use a

penalty flag The penalty flag (or just "flag"), often called a penalty marker (or just "marker"), is a yellow cloth used in several field sports including American football, Canadian football, and lacrosse by game officials to identify and sometimes mark th ...

. The second innovation was an unsuccessful venture to allow a coach to be on the field with the offense to help call plays and provide additional coaching as time allows.

National championships

In 2012, Kevin Patrick Hardy (class of 2013) became OCU's first national champion in wrestling, taking the national title at 165 pounds. Hardy was a Division 1 three time state champion at Solon High School in Ohio. Through the Spring 2012 sports season, Oklahoma City has won 49 national championships. Of these, 45 are NAIA championships, and four are

WCWA WCWA (1230 AM) is a radio station licensed to and serving Toledo, Ohio, airing a sports format. Owned by iHeartMedia, it is the Toledo affiliate for Fox Sports Radio, and the city's second-oldest radio station. History The station signed on i ...

championships. Oklahoma City won the

NACDA Director's Cup The NACDA Directors' Cup, known for sponsorship reasons as the NACDA Learfield Directors' Cup or simply as the Directors' Cup, is an award given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) to the colleges and ...

for the NAIA in 2002 and 2017, awarded annually to the college or university with the most success in collegiate athletics. OCU has won national championships in the following sports (number of championships in parentheses, NAIA titles unless otherwise specified): * Men's ** Baseball (1) – 2005 ** Basketball (6) – 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2007, 2008 ** Golf (10) – 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2016 ** Tennis (4) – 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Total men's Championships: 21 (in 4 different men's team sports) * Women's ** Basketball (8) – 1988, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2012, 2014, 2015 ** Golf (7) – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014 ** Softball (11) – 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2016, 2017, 2022 ** Wrestling (4-WCWA) – 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Total women's championships: 27 (in 4 different women's team sports) * Co-ed ** Cheerleading (2) – 2017, 2021 Total coed championships: 1 (in 1 coed team sport)

Nickname and mascot history

The school is currently known as the Stars, but was known as the Goldbugs or Gold Bugs in the 1920s, 30s and early 40s. From 1944, the university was known as the Chiefs a nickname changed in 1998 in reaction to the mounting pressure on schools to adopt names more sensitive to and respectful of Native American culture.

References

External links

* {{Oklahoma college sports