The Tampa Spartans are the athletic teams that represent the

University of Tampa The University of Tampa (UTampa, UT or Tampa U) is a private university in Tampa, Florida. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. UTampa offers more than 200 programs of study, including 19 master's degrees and a br ...

, located in

Tampa, Florida Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

, in

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is the intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environment ...

intercollegiate sports. The Spartans compete as members of the

Sunshine State Conference The Sunshine State Conference is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. All of its member institutions are located in the state of Florida, which is popularly k ...

for all sports besides beach volleyball and track and field, which compete as independents. Tampa has been a member of the conference since 1981.

Varsity teams

Tampa sponsors 20 varsity teams, 8 for men and 12 for women:

Former sports

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 ...

* Men's tennis * Water skiing * Men's wrestling

National championships

Spartan varsity teams have won 19 NCAA Division II National Titles as of December 2022, which is seventh-most among current Division II teams. The titles won are as follows: eight in baseball (1992, 1993, 1998, 2006, 2007, 2013, 2015 and 2019), three in men's soccer (1981, 1994 and 2001), two in golf (1987 and 1988), four in women's volleyball (2006, 2014, 2018, and 2021), one in women's soccer (2007), and one in men's lacrosse (2022). They also won a beach volleyball title in the

AVCA The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) is an organization of over 9,000 members, incorporated as a private non-profit corporation, non-profit educational corporation in 1981, as the Collegiate Volleyball Coaches Association. It is cur ...

in 2019 and 2021, for a total of 21 national titles. UT athletes have won 35 individual and relay NCAA championships.

Team championships

Rivalries

St. Petersburg College

UT's first athletic rival was

St. Petersburg College St. Petersburg College (SPC) is a public college in St. Petersburg, Florida. Part of the Florida College System, SPC offers several associate and baccalaureate degree programs. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools ...

. UT even adopted the Spartan as its mascot in the 1930s because SPC were known as the Trojans at the time (though they have since changed to the Titans). As SPC is a junior college, the schools rarely (if ever) meet nowadays.

Florida Southern

The Spartans main rival is the nearby Sunshine State Conference foe

Florida Southern College Florida Southern College (Florida Southern, Southern or FSC) is a private college in Lakeland, Florida. In 2019, the student population at FSC consisted of 3,073 students along with 130 full-time faculty members. It offers undergraduate, gradua ...

Moccasins A moccasin is a shoe, made of deerskin or other soft leather, consisting of a sole (made with leather that has not been "worked") and sides made of one piece of leather, stitched together at the top, and sometimes with a vamp (additional pane ...

. The rivalry is known best for its baseball games, with both teams regularly among the best in

. The Spartans and Mocs have a combined 17 baseball national championships, with Tampa winning 8 and FSC winning 9. No other team in Division II has more than 3 baseball titles.

Rowdies Cup

Each August, the Spartans men's soccer team faces their crosstown rivals, the Division I University of South Florida Bulls, in an

NCAA 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. ...

preseason match which celebrates the Tampa Bay Area's rich soccer history. In addition to holding the Rowdies Cup trophy for the next 12 months, the winning side also gets to hoist the actual 1975 Soccer Bowl trophy that was won by the original

Tampa Bay Rowdies The Tampa Bay Rowdies are an American professional soccer team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The club was founded in 2008 and first took the pitch in 2010. Since 2017, the Rowdies have been members of the USL Championship in the second tie ...

and is housed at USF's Corbett Soccer Stadium. As of the 2022 edition, USF holds a 25–11–3 edge in the all-time series. The match was previously contested as the Mayor's Cup and dates back to 1972.

Football

UT fielded a men's football team from 1933 to 1974. The "Tampa U" Spartans first played at

Plant Field Plant Field was the first major athletic multi-purpose stadium in Tampa, Florida. It was built in 1899 by Henry B. Plant on the grounds of his Tampa Bay Hotel to host various events and activities for guests, and it consisted of a large field ri ...

near the school's campus from 1933 to 1936, then played across the street at Phillips Field for three decades, then became

Tampa Stadium Tampa Stadium (nicknamed The Big Sombrero and briefly known as Houlihan's Stadium) was a large open-air stadium (maximum capacity about 74,000) located in Tampa, Florida, which opened in 1967 and was significantly expanded in 1974–75. The fac ...

's first home team when they moved to the brand-new venue in 1967. The move to Tampa Stadium coincided with the program's greatest success. The Spartans beat the cross-state rival

Miami Hurricanes The Miami Hurricanes, known informally as The U, UM, or The 'Canes, are the intercollegiate sports teams that represent the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The Hurricanes compete in NCAA Division I, Division I of the National Coll ...

in 1970, moved up to

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 ...

in 1971, and defeated the Hurricanes again in 1972. Several UT players from this era went on to play in the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...

, and the Spartans won the

1972 Tangerine Bowl The 1972 Tangerine Bowl, part of the 1972 bowl game season, took place on December 29, 1972, at the Tangerine Bowl stadium in Orlando, Florida. The competing teams were the Tampa Spartans, that competed as a College Division Independent, and th ...

.UT Journal – Winter 2007 – ut.edu
(PDF) . Retrieved on 2012-05-08. However, rising expenses resulted in the football program operating at a loss and required the school to subsidize it with several hundred thousand dollars per year. When the NFL awarded Tampa an expansion team (the future

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (colloquially known as the Bucs) are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC S ...

) in 1974, the university's financial committee predicted that local support for Spartan football would decrease and recommended that the program be folded before the 1975 season. On February 12, 1975, the University of Tampa's board of directors voted to drop the sport immediately.

Other sports

In addition to varsity sports, UT fields competitive junior varsity baseball and men's lacrosse teams that play a full schedule against area colleges and visiting northern schools and it also fields a crew team that competes in crew events around the nation.

Hall of fame

The University of Tampa Athletic Hall of Fame includes former

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

players

Lou Piniella Louis Victor Piniella ( usually ; born August 28, 1943) is a former professional baseball player and manager. An outfielder, he played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Royals a ...

and

Tino Martinez Constantino "Tino" Martinez (born December 7, 1967) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 199 ...

, former

players

Freddie Solomon Freddie Solomon (January 11, 1953 – February 13, 2012) was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Miami Dolphins in the second round of the 1975 NFL ...

of the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...

, and

John Matuszak John Daniel Matuszak (October 25, 1950 – June 17, 1989), nicknamed "Tooz", was an American professional football defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) who later became an actor. Matuszak was drafted by the Houston Oilers with the ...

of the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...

References

External links

* {{Florida College Sports