Wabash Little Giants | |
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University | Wabash College |
Conference | North Coast Athletic Conference Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League (volleyball) |
NCAA | Division III |
Athletic director | Matt Tanney |
Location | Crawfordsville, Indiana |
Varsity teams | 12 |
Football stadium | Byron P. Hollett Little Giant Stadium |
Basketball arena | Chadwick Court |
Baseball stadium | Goodrich Ballpark |
Soccer stadium | Mud Hollow Field |
Lacrosse stadium | Mud Hollow Field |
Mascot | Wally Wabash |
Nickname | Little Giants |
Fight song | "Old Wabash" |
Colors | Scarlet |
Website | sports |
The Wabash Little Giants are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent Wabash College, a small private school for men in Crawfordsville, Indiana, United States. The college belongs to the National Collegiate Athletic Association and participates in Division III sports. The Little Giants compete as members of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC). [1] Despite the college's small enrollment and that it is "not a jock school", [2] the Little Giants have had success in several sports. The most popular among Wabash fans are football and swimming. [2] The Little Giants also have a well-respected cross-country team. [2] In football, Wabash has an important rivalry with DePauw University, 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. [3]
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. [4]
In 1884, Wabash played its first game of intercollegiate football when it defeated a team from Butler University on October 25, 4–0. [5] The first intercollegiate game in the state took place on May 31, between Butler and DePauw University. [6] From the 1890s to the 1910s, the Wabash football team played schedules against many much larger colleges, such as Illinois, Indiana and Purdue, against whom the Little Giants occasionally won impressive upsets. For instance Wabash won all five games against Purdue between 1906 and 1911. [7]
Wabash College began varsity intercollegiate competition in men's basketball in 1897. [8]
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. [9] 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. [10] 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) [11] and captained by Mike Holcomb and future NFL star Pete Metzelaars, [12] rolled their way to a 23-4 season. They were considered an inexperienced squad (their captains being the only seniors) coming into the season. [13] 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, in a thrilling overtime game in Crawfordsville. The other three were to Division I Louisiana Tech and UT San Antonio and Division II Texas A&I. 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. [14] They closed the regular season defeating DePauw by 10 in Crawfordsville. [15]
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. [16] 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. [17] 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. [18] It was the largest margin of victory in the championship at the time.
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 curriculum in three academic divisions with 39 majors.
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-unprecedented 10 women's sports. Today it remains true to that legacy, sponsoring 23 sports, 11 for men and 12 for women.
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 Great Lakes Colleges Association and the North Coast Athletic Conference. The Society of Professional Journalists was founded at DePauw.
The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Member institutions are located in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Founded as the Indiana Collegiate Athletic Conference (ICAC) in 1987, it reincorporated under its current name in 1998 with the addition of several schools from Ohio.
The Monon Bell is the trophy awarded to the victor of the annual college football matchup between the Wabash College Little Giants and the DePauw University Tigers in the United States. The Bell is a 300-pound locomotive bell from the Monon Railroad. As of the end of the 2021 season, the two teams have played against each other 127 times. Wabash leads the all-time series, 63-56-9, and also has the advantage since the Bell was introduced as the victor's trophy in 1932, 44-40-6.
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA), the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), and the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA). Each of these various organizations is subdivided into one to three divisions, based on the number and level of scholarships that may be provided to the athletes.
The Purdue Boilermakers are the official intercollegiate athletics teams representing Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana. As is common with athletic nicknames, the Boilermakers nickname is also used as colloquial designation of Purdue's students and alumni at large. The nickname is often shortened to "Boilers" by fans.
Peter Henry Metzelaars is a former American football tight end who played for the Seattle Seahawks, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, and Detroit Lions in a sixteen-year career in the National Football League. Following his playing career, Metzelaars became a coach.
Anthony Wencel Chez was an American football, basketball, and baseball coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Wabash College (1900), DePauw University (1901), the University of Cincinnati (1902–1903), and West Virginia University (1904), compiling a career college football record of 24–20–2. Chez was also the head basketball coach at Cincinnati (1902–1904) and West Virginia (1904–1907), amassing a career college basketball record of 27–31. In addition, he was the head baseball coach at Wabash in 1901 and Cincinnati from 1903 to 1904, tallying a career college baseball mark of 20–16–2. From 1904 to 1913 Chez served as West Virginia's athletic director.
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The Wabash Little Giants football team represents Wabash College in the sport of college football at the NCAA Division III level.
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