Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons

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Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons
Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons logo.svg
University Purdue University Fort Wayne
Conference Horizon League (primary)
MIVA (men's volleyball)
NCAA Division I
Athletic directorKelley Hartley Hutton
Location Fort Wayne, Indiana
Varsity teams16
Basketball arena Hilliard Gates Sports Center
Baseball stadium Mastodon Field
Soccer stadium Hefner Soccer Complex
MascotDon the Mastodon
NicknameMastodons
Fight songGo 'Dons!
ColorsBlack and gold [1]
   
Website gomastodons.com
Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons wordmark.svg

The Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons, formerly known as the IPFW Mastodons and Fort Wayne Mastodons, are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). The school's athletic program includes 16 varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a Mastodon named Don, and the school colors are black and gold. The university participates in the NCAA's Division I as members of the Horizon League in all varsity sports except for men's volleyball, which competes in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association. Purdue Fort Wayne offers eight varsity sports for men and eight for women.

Contents

History

IPFW

At the start of athletics competition, the school was known as IPFW, the abbreviation for Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne. In 1968, a large bone was discovered during the installation of a farm pond near Angola, Indiana, about 40 miles (65 km) north of Fort Wayne. The farmer who owned the property contacted professors in the IPFW geology department, who identified his discovery as the leg bone of a mastodon. Faculty and students from the geology department excavated the greater part of an adult mastodon, including the skull and tusks. The bones were cleaned, preserved, and placed on permanent display at IPFW. In 1970, members of the geology club, led by professors who oversaw the excavation, successfully lobbied the student government committee charged with choosing a name for the university mascot to select the mastodon. And thus, the IPFW Mastodons were born. In addition to serving as a mascot, “Mastodon” is used as the athletic moniker for team members and school-spirited references to the student body. The selection of the mastodon as mascot, as well as a tongue-in-cheek borrowing of the term “Don” from its academic British English use, lends itself to use as a suffix to refer to the athletics teams as well, such as "Volleydons" for the volleyball teams. In a related reference, the Mastodon STOMP pep band instills school spirit among the fans during home matches and games. By using the nickname "Mastodons," Purdue Fort Wayne is one of the few schools to use an extinct organism as a nickname, along with the Amherst Mammoths and the Maranatha Baptist Sabercats.[ citation needed ]

When the school first fielded athletic teams, it competed as an NCAA Division III independent. In the summer of 1981, the Mastodons made a jump to NCAA Division II where they remained independent. Prior to the 1984–85 school year, the Mastodons joined the Great Lakes Valley Conference, their first-ever conference affiliation. At the start of the 2001–02 academic year, the Mastodons joined NCAA Division I as an independent. IPFW joined its first Division I conference in July 2007, joining the Summit League. [2]

IPFW was reorganized in the mid-2010s, eventually splitting into Indiana University Fort Wayne and Purdue University Fort Wayne. One of the first results of this action was the discontinuation of the tennis teams at the end of the 2014–2015 academic year. The teams had won Summit League regular-season (men's: 2012; women's: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013) and tournament (women's 2010, 2011, 2013) championships.

Summit League logo in Purdue Fort Wayne's colors Summit logo in Fort Wayne colors.svg
Summit League logo in Purdue Fort Wayne's colors

Fort Wayne

On August 8, 2016, shortly before the start of the 2016–17 school year, IPFW athletic director Kelley Hartley Hutton announced that effective immediately, "Fort Wayne" would be the university's exclusive athletic brand. The school's "IPFW" academic branding was not affected. The Summit League has called the athletic program "Fort Wayne" since 2012, in line with a conference initiative to use geographic names to describe metropolitan campuses such as IPFW. When the school announced the athletic brand change, it noted, [3]

Some Mastodon teams have already been using Fort Wayne on uniforms since this recommendation, but the use has been limited and resulted in some confusion. Outside of northeast Indiana, there is also considerable confusion about the "IPFW" acronym, with misnomers being common—even among those involved in Division I athletics.

Purdue Fort Wayne

Indiana University and Purdue University in Fort Wayne officially separated on July 1, 2018, with IU taking responsibility for IPFW's degree programs in health sciences and Purdue retaining all other academic programs. Thereafter, the Mastodons represented Purdue University Fort Wayne. [4] With the name change, the school's colors changed from royal blue and White to the old gold and black used by the other three Purdue University campuses. [5] On June 18, 2018, the school announced that beginning July 1, 2018 all NCAA sports teams will be known as the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastadons. [6] In addition, a new logo was revealed in whuch the color blue is incorporated as a secondary color to the university's official school colors of gold and black. [6]

Because NCAA rules bar players from two different schools from competing on the same team, IU Fort Wayne students became ineligible for Mastodons athletics. At the time the separation was announced, five of the roughly 240 Fort Wayne varsity athletes were in academic majors that became part of the new IU Fort Wayne campus, with three possibly requiring NCAA waivers to remain athletically eligible. [7]

The school moved from the Summit League to the Horizon League in July 2020. The official announcement of this move noted that PFW would be near the geographic center of its new league, with an average distance of 170 miles (274 km) from the other members. [8] At that time, media also noted that PFW's longest road trip in the Horizon League — 344 miles (554 km) to Green Bay — would be shorter than its shortest Summit League trip, which was 367 miles (591 km) to Western Illinois. [9] PFW's Horizon League announcement took place several months before Robert Morris University, located in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, announced it would also join the Horizon League in 2020. The addition of Robert Morris increased PFW's average conference road trip to about 210 miles (338 km), but Green Bay remains PFW's longest Horizon League road trip.

Sports sponsored

Men's sportsWomen's sports
Baseball Basketball
Basketball Cross country
Cross countryGolf
GolfSoccer
SoccerSoftball
Track and field†Track and field†
VolleyballVolleyball
† – Track and field includes both indoor and outdoor

Purdue Fort Wayne has 16 NCAA Division I varsity teams: 8 varsity sports for men and 8 for women. [10] The men's volleyball team is a member of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association. [11] The newest Mastodons sports are men's indoor and outdoor track & field, reinstated in 2019–20 after having been dropped by IPFW in 2005. [12]

Baseball

Men's basketball

Before joining NCAA Division I athletics, Fort Wayne competed in the Great Lakes Valley Conference in some sports in the NCAA Division II, where in 1993, the men's basketball team led, by brothers Sean and Shane Gibson, achieved the ranking of No. 4 in the country in NCAA Division II competition. Dane Fife was named the IPFW men's basketball head coach during summer 2005. Fife, who left after the 2010–11 season, was the youngest NCAA Division I head coach at the time of his appointment, at the age of 26. Tony Jasick replaced Fife as the head coach. Jon Coffman is the current head coach of the program, announced on April 10, 2014. [13]

Women's basketball

Venues

During its existence as IPFW, it hosted the 2000 NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship matches at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, which is adjacent to the campus. Most athletic events are held in the Hilliard Gates Sports Center or the Athletics Center Fieldhouse on the PFW campus.

Club sports

Men's ice hockey

The IPFW Club Men's Ice Hockey Team is in its sixth season as a program and competes in the ACHA's North Region. IPFW has had recent success finishing in the top 20 in the nation the last three seasons[ when? ]. This past season the Mastodons won the Big Ten Club Tournament championship hosted by Northwestern University. This was a huge win for the program with bigger schools such as Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, Northern Illinois and No. 3 ranked University of Michigan-Flint also in the tournament. The Dons play their home games at Lutheran Health SportCenter and have for the past 2 seasons. IPFW used to play their games at the old McMillan Ice Arena.

Footnotes

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne</span> Defunct university in Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.

    Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) was a public university in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Founded in 1964, IPFW was a cooperatively managed regional campus of two state university systems: Indiana University and Purdue University. IPFW hit its highest enrollment in 2014, with 13,459 undergraduate and postgraduate students in nine colleges and schools, including a branch of the Indiana University School of Medicine. During its last academic year (2017–2018), IPFW had a total enrollment of 10,414 students. IPFW offered more than 200 graduate and undergraduate degree programs through IU or Purdue universities. The university's 14 men's and women's athletic teams competed in Division I of the NCAA Summit League.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association</span>

    The Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) is a college athletic conference whose member schools compete in men's volleyball. The conference footprint is centered in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Missouri in the west to Ohio in the east, and also extends into North Carolina. Many of the conference's schools also participate in the similarly named Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association in men's volleyball at the club level.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Summit League</span> American college athletic conference

    The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States, from Minnesota in the east, to the Dakotas, Nebraska and Colorado to the West, and Missouri and Oklahoma to the South. Founded as the Association of Mid-Continent Universities in 1982, it rebranded as the Mid-Continent Conference in 1989, then again as the Summit League on June 1, 2007. The league headquarters are in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Horizon League</span> College sports league in the United States

    The Horizon League is a collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the league's eleven member schools are located in and near the Great Lakes region.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Purdue University system</span> Public university system in Indiana

    The Purdue University system is a public university system in the U.S. state of Indiana. A land-grant university with nearly 75,000 students across three institutions comprising five physical campuses, a statewide technology program, extension centers in each of Indiana's 92 counties, and continuing education programs. Additionally, there are another ~44,000 students enrolled in an online university. Each university in the system maintains its own faculty and admissions policies which are overseen by the Purdue University Board of Trustees. Purdue's main campus in West Lafayette is the best-known, noted for its highly regarded programs in engineering and adjacent subjects.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">IU Indy Jaguars</span> Sports teams that represent Indiana University Indianapolis

    The IU Indy Jaguars are the 18 intercollegiate teams that represent Indiana University Indianapolis, in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. They compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The teams were established by Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). The Jaguars were originally known as the IUPUI Metros.

    The Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons men's basketball team is the intercollegiate men's basketball team that represents Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). They have been a member of the Horizon League since 2020. Formerly, they represented the now defunct Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW). The team has yet to participate in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. The Mastodons are coached by Jon Coffman and play their home games at the Hilliard Gates Sports Center and the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida Gulf Coast Eagles</span> Group of university sports teams

    The Florida Gulf Coast Eagles refer to the fifteen intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Florida Gulf Coast University, located in unincorporated Lee County, Florida near Fort Myers, in intercollegiate athletics, including men and women's basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, and tennis; women's-only: softball, swimming and diving, indoor volleyball, and beach volleyball; and men's-only: baseball. The Eagles compete in the NCAA Division I and are members of the ASUN Conference (ASUN). FGCU is also notable as the youngest institution competing in NCAA Division I, having been officially founded in 1991 and started classes in 1997. Their mascot is Azul the Eagle.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Purdue University Fort Wayne</span> Public university in Fort Wayne, Indiana, US

    Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW) is a public university in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A campus of Purdue University, Purdue Fort Wayne was founded on July 1, 2018, when its predecessor university, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne formally split into two separate institutions: Purdue University Fort Wayne and Indiana University Fort Wayne.

    The 2016–17 Fort Wayne Mastodons men's basketball team, formerly known as the IPFW Mastodons, represented Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne during the 2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Mastodons, led by third-year head coach Jon Coffman, played their home games at the Gates Sports Center and the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum as members of The Summit League. They finished the season 20–13, 8–8 in Summit League play to finish in a three-way tie for fourth place. They defeated the number 3 ranked Indians Hoosiers 71-68 in overtime. They lost in the quarterfinals of the Summit League tournament to Omaha. They were invited to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament where they defeated Ball State in the first round and received a second round bye before losing in the quarterfinals to Texas A&M–Corpus Christi.

    The 2018 NCAA Division I Baseball season, play of college baseball in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level, began in February 2018. The season progressed through the regular season, many conference tournaments and championship series, and concluded with the 2018 NCAA Division I baseball tournament and 2018 College World Series. The College World Series, consisting of the eight remaining teams in the NCAA tournament and held annually in Omaha, Nebraska, at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, ended on June 28, 2018.

    The 2017–18 Fort Wayne Mastodons men's basketball team represented Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne during the 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Mastodons were led by fourth-year head coach Jon Coffman and played their home games at the Gates Sports Center and the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum as members of the Summit League. They finished the season 18–15, 7–7 in Summit League play to finish in fourth place. On December 18, 2017 the Fort Wayne Mastodons traveled to Bloomington for a game with the state powerhouse Indiana Hoosiers. In a stunning upset they beat Indiana on their home court for the first time ever on national television. They lost in the quarterfinals of the Summit League tournament to North Dakota State. They were invited to the CollegeInsdier.com Tournament where they lost in the first round to Central Michigan.

    The Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons baseball team is the varsity intercollegiate baseball program of Purdue University Fort Wayne in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States. The program's first season was in 1970, and it has been a member of the NCAA Division I Horizon League since the start of the 2021 season. Its home venue is Mastodon Field, located on Purdue Fort Wayne's campus. Doug Schreiber is the team's head coach starting in the 2020 season. The program has appeared in 0 NCAA Tournaments. It has won zero conference tournament championships and 0 regular season conference titles. As of the start of the 2020 Major League Baseball season, 0 former Mastodons have appeared in Major League Baseball.

    The 2018–19 Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons men's basketball team represented Purdue University Fort Wayne during the 2018–19 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Mastodons were led by fifth-year head coach Jon Coffman and split their home games between the Gates Sports Center and the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum as members of the Summit League.

    The 2019 NCAA Division I Baseball season, play of college baseball in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level, began February 15, 2019. The season progressed through the regular season, many conference tournaments and championship series, and concluded with the 2019 NCAA Division I baseball tournament and 2019 College World Series. The College World Series, consisting of the eight remaining teams in the NCAA tournament and held annually in Omaha, Nebraska, at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, ended on June 26, 2019. The Vanderbilt Commodores won the tournament, and were consequently named national champions.

    The 2018–19 Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons women's basketball team represents Purdue University Fort Wayne during the 2018–19 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The Mastodons, led by third year head coach Niecee Nelson and played their home games at play their home games at the Hilliard Gates Sports Center, with one home game at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. They were members of The Summit League. They finished the season 7–23, 3–13 in Summit League play to finish in eighth place. They lost in the quarterfinals of the Summit League women's tournament to South Dakota State.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">John Konchar</span> American basketball player (born 1996)

    John Konchar is an American professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons.

    The Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons men's basketball statistical leaders are individual statistical leaders of the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons men's basketball program in various categories, including points, three-pointers, assists, blocks, rebounds, and steals. Within those areas, the lists identify single-game, single-season, and career leaders. The Mastodons represent Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW) in the NCAA Division I Horizon League.

    References

    1. ↑ "Purdue Fort Wayne Branding Released". GoMastodons.com. June 7, 2018. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
    2. ↑ Hope Nsiah-Kumi (May 15, 2007). "Mid-Continent Conference Presidents Council Launches Summit Plan" (PDF). www.admin.xosn.com. Mid-Continent Conference. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
    3. ↑ "Introducing the Fort Wayne Mastodons" (Press release). Fort Wayne Athletics. August 8, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2016.
    4. ↑ "Goodbye IPFW, hello Purdue Fort Wayne". Journal & Courier, a division of Gannett Company, Inc. April 21, 2017. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
    5. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions/Additional Questions". Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne. Archived from the original on December 4, 2017. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
    6. 1 2 "Purdue Fort Wayne Branding Released". Fort Wayne. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
    7. ↑ Shawgo, Ron (June 17, 2017). "No Div. I for IU athletes in Fort Wayne". The Journal Gazette . Fort Wayne, IN . Retrieved January 22, 2018.
    8. ↑ "Purdue University Fort Wayne to Join Horizon League" (Press release). Horizon League. August 5, 2019. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
    9. ↑ Gaskins, John (August 5, 2019). "Fort Wayne leaving Summit League". Sioux Falls, SD: KWSN . Retrieved March 8, 2020.
    10. ↑ "The Official Site of the Fort Wayne Mastdons/Sports". Fort Wayne Mastdons. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
    11. ↑ "MIVA/Teams". Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
    12. ↑ "Men's Indoor and Outdoor Track Returns to Purdue Fort Wayne" (Press release). Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons. October 25, 2018. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
    13. ↑ "IPFW Mastodons Athletics – Jon Coffman Named IPFW Men's Basketball Head Coach". Gomastodons.com. October 4, 2014. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
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