16 Schools•Division I•Est. 1986
The Patriot League was founded as the football-only Colonial League and began competition in 1986, taking its present name in 1990 as it expanded into a full sports conference. Headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, it competes in NCAA Division I and sponsors championships in twenty four sports. Its members are among the oldest and most selective institutions in the country, and the league was built on a founding principle it still keeps: student athletes admitted and graduated as academically representative of their class.
That principle shows in the results. Since 1998 the Patriot League has ranked first among all scholarship-offering Division I conferences in student athlete graduation rates. Nearly four hundred student athletes have been named CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, more than fifteen thousand have made the league's Academic Honor Roll, and its athletes have earned Fulbright, Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships.
The competition is no less serious. Lehigh beat second-seeded Duke in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, one of the great upsets in the event's history. Loyola Maryland's Pat Spencer and Colgate's Peter Baum both won the Tewaaraton Award as the finest player in men's lacrosse. Colgate's Kenny Gamble won the first Walter Payton Award ever given to the top player in Division I FCS football. Colgate rower Lauren Schmetterling won Olympic gold in the women's eight at Rio, and Navy graduate Brad Snyder, blinded while serving in Afghanistan, has won Paralympic gold in swimming and in the paratriathlon.
Rivalry here is measured in centuries. Lafayette and Lehigh have met more times than any two schools in college football, and theirs is the longest uninterrupted series in the sport. It predates football trophies altogether, so the winner simply keeps the game ball, painted with the score, and the oldest of them are older than the forward pass. Fordham and Holy Cross, who first played in 1902, compete for the Ram-Crusader Trophy, named for Frank Cavanaugh, the Iron Major, who coached them both.
Official Website
The Patriot League was founded as the football-only Colonial League and began competition in 1986, taking its present name in 1990 as it expanded into a full sports conference. Headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, it competes in NCAA Division I and sponsors championships in twenty four sports. Its members are among the oldest and most selective institutions in the country, and the league was built on a founding principle it still keeps: student athletes admitted and graduated as academically representative of their class.
That principle shows in the results. Since 1998 the Patriot League has ranked first among all scholarship-offering Division I conferences in student athlete graduation rates. Nearly four hundred student athletes have been named CoSIDA Academic All-Americans, more than fifteen thousand have made the league's Academic Honor Roll, and its athletes have earned Fulbright, Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships.
The competition is no less serious. Lehigh beat second-seeded Duke in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, one of the great upsets in the event's history. Loyola Maryland's Pat Spencer and Colgate's Peter Baum both won the Tewaaraton Award as the finest player in men's lacrosse. Colgate's Kenny Gamble won the first Walter Payton Award ever given to the top player in Division I FCS football. Colgate rower Lauren Schmetterling won Olympic gold in the women's eight at Rio, and Navy graduate Brad Snyder, blinded while serving in Afghanistan, has won Paralympic gold in swimming and in the paratriathlon.
Rivalry here is measured in centuries. Lafayette and Lehigh have met more times than any two schools in college football, and theirs is the longest uninterrupted series in the sport. It predates football trophies altogether, so the winner simply keeps the game ball, painted with the score, and the oldest of them are older than the forward pass. Fordham and Holy Cross, who first played in 1902, compete for the Ram-Crusader Trophy, named for Frank Cavanaugh, the Iron Major, who coached them both.
Official Website