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The Fordham Rams are the Varsity team sports teams for Fordham University. Their colors are maroon and white. The Fordham Rams are members of NCAA Division I and compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference for most sports. In football, the Rams play in the Patriot League of NCAA Division I-AA. The University also supports a number of club sports, and a significant intramural sports program. The University's athletic booster clubs include the Sixth Man Club for basketball and the Afterguard for sailing.
William Morris writes that Stanley Woodward actually took the term from fellow New York Tribune sportswriter Caswell Adams. Morris writes that during the 1930s, the Fordham University football team was running roughshod over all its opponents. One day in the sports room at the Tribune, the merits of Fordham's football team was being compared to Princeton Tigers and Columbia Lions. Adams remarked disparagingly of the latter two, saying they were "only Ivy League." Woodward, the sports editor of the Tribune, picked up the term and printed it the next day.
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There have been 56 major leaguers who have played for Fordham, including All-Star pitcher Pete Harnisch and Baseball Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch. Frisch, a star athlete in four different sports at Fordham, was known as the "Fordham Flash". Steve Bellán, first Latin American to play Major League Baseball, started his career as a player at St. John's College.
The team plays home games at Houlihan Park at Jack Coffey Field. Coffey Field, a multisport facility, is named after Jack Coffey, former athletic director and baseball coach at the University. He amassed 817 wins as a baseball coach. Coffey is the only player to play with both Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth in the same season (1918 Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox). The baseball portion of the field was renamed "Houlihan Park" after renovations completed in 2005.
The Fordham men have won three Patriot League regular season conference titles (1991, 1992, 1994) and two Patriot League tournament championships (1991 and 1992).
Fordham has participated in four NCAA Tournaments (1953, 1954, 1971, 1992), and sixteen NITs (1943, 1958, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1991). Though Fordham won the 1991 Patriot League Tournament, the NCAA did not grant the Patriot League an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament that year. Instead, Fordham played in one of three "play-in games", but lost, and was not considered to have reached the NCAA Tournament.
In the 2009–10 season, Fordham went 0–16 in the A-10 conference season (2–26 overall), becoming the first team to go winless in an A-10 conference season since St. Bonaventure in 1992–93. That winless streak, which started during the 2008–09 season, ended on the 2010–11 season's final game, snapping the streak at 41.
Through the end of the 2010–11 season, the program's cumulative record is 1,444 wins and 1,237 losses (.539 win percentage).
After leading the team to a 25-8 record in 2022-23, head coach Keith Urgo received the John B. Hall award, one given to the top first-year coach in Division 1 basketball. In addition, the Atlantic 10 conference named Keith Urgo coach of the year for the 2023 season, being the second Fordham coach to receive this honor.
The Rams won more home games in the 2023 season than any other college team in the nation.
On September 30, 1939, Fordham participated in the world's first televised American football game. In front of the sport's first live TV audience, the Rams defeated Waynesburg College 34–7. The following week they lost the second ever televised game to the University of Alabama, 7–6. It was not for another month that a professional NFL game was televised.
Fordham has dropped their football program on several different occasions. Fordham first dropped football between 1894–95, and then again between 1910–11, 1919, and 1943-45. On December 15, 1954, Fordham scratched its football program for the fifth time, for various reasons, mainly financial. A club football team was established in 1964 (on shaky authority) and football was re-established as a varsity sport in 1970, but in Division III. Fordham joined what is now the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision in 1989.
With 722 all-time wins at the close of the 2005 season, Fordham's football program ranks 15th among Division I programs on the all-time NCAA wins list, and fifth among programs currently playing in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision, trailing only Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Princeton University (putting the Rams in first among non-Ivy League schools in the FCS standings).
Fordham was invited to play in the 1942 Rose Bowl, but declined the invitation because it had previously accepted a berth in the 1942 Sugar Bowl. The Rams, who defeated the University of Missouri by a 2–0 score, were the 1942 Sugar Bowl champions. The Rams also played in the 1941 Cotton Bowl Classic but lost 13–12 to Texas A&M. At least one source lists Fordham as the 1929 National Football Champions.
Since 2002, Fordham has played Columbia University for The Liberty Cup. The trophy was dedicated after the attacks of September 11, 2001, forced the postponement of the first annual meeting between New York City's two Division I football programs. In 2009 the university announced that it will be offering scholarships for football for the first time since 1954. This makes the Rams ineligible to compete for the Patriot League championship, but simultaneously allows them to schedule games with Football Bowl Subdivision teams such as the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen (which are members of the Patriot League outside football), both immediately scheduled. In addition, the Rams are still eligible for an at-large bid for the Championship Subdivision play-offs.Ehalt, Matt. "Fordham football offers scholorships [sic]for the first time since 1954" , New York Daily News, June 5, 2009. Retrieved June 25, 2009. In 2013, the Rams had a record year in going 12-2 with wins over FBS Temple and ranked Villanova and Lehigh teams and went to the second round of the FCS playoffs.
Fordham University's 2023 Football team had an overall record of 6-5 with a 2-4 record in the Patriot League. Their biggest win of the season came against Lehigh University with a score of 38-35 on October 7, 2023. Kicker Brandon Peskin kicked the 44-yard game-winning field goal with one second left on the clock. During the pregame on October 7, 2023, during Fordham University's homecoming football game, the school announced renaming the Jack Coffey Field to The Joe Moglia Stadium in honor of Fordham Alum Joe Moglia.
Tom Courtney won Olympic gold in the 800 m run at the 1956 Games. While at Fordham Courtney had anchored the 2 mile relay that broke the world record in 1954.
Fordham track has had a resurgence in the past two decades with an All-Americans and numerous conference champions. Barry Cantrell earned all-American honors in the high jump in 1998. There have been several Atlantic 10 Conference champions including the jumping events, hammer throw. and the intermediate hurdles.
In 2008, the men's track and field team won the Outdoor Metropolitan Championship. The title was the first ever Metropolitan Athletic Conference team title captured by the Rams in the school's history. "Men's Track Wins First Ever Outdoor Metropolitan Championship; Women Take Highest Ever Finish In Second" , FordhamSports.com, Palisades Park, New Jersey, April 19, 2008; accessed June 27, 2008. In the 2009 Outdoor Season the Rams defended their title, while the Women's squad captured second in the team scoring.
Fordham crew trains on the Harlem River. For many years the university maintained the last remaining boathouse on "Racing shell's row" off the river in Manhattan, along Sherman Creek, until it was destroyed by suspected arson in 1978. It has yet to be replaced. Currently, the club shares space at the Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse near Sherman Creek, the first community boathouse built in Manhattan in over 100 years. Since 1989, Fordham has medaled every year at the Dad Vail and other major collegiate regattas. During that period the team has had 9 undefeated seasons and 13 national championships: eight at the Dad Vail, three at the Eastern College Athletic Conference National Invitational Collegiate Regatta, one at the Division-I National Championships, and one at the IRA Championship. Fordham was the 2007 Dad Vail Champions in Men's Varsity Lightweight 4+ and the 2008 Dad Vail Champions in Men's Varsity Lightweight 8+.
The 2018-19 season was the Rams' most successful campaign to date. Aside from securing back to back (MCHC) championships, Fordham also won both of their games at regionals against Springfield College and George Mason University, sending the Rams to the ACHA National Championship tournament for the first time. Fordham won two games at Nationals, beating Florida Gulf Coast University and University of Nebraska, while their only loss came to the University of Michigan by one goal. Joe Sponenburg was named Atlantic Region MVP, and head coach Rich Guberti won Atlantic Coach of The Year. Sponenburg and fellow sophomore Connor Burke were voted to All-Atlantic teams, as was junior forward Zach Brenner.
In 2020, Fordham became a member of the Empire Collegiate Hockey Conference, "joining the most elite college club hockey league in the Atlantic region." In 2020, Fordham also began its first season as a member of the Collegiate Hockey Federation (CHF) "whose membership represents the highest level of competition on a national level." The team is coached by Rich Guberti, who was an assistant coach for two years and has been the head coach for the past eleven years. Until 2020, the team had gone 221-73-8-10 during this tenure.
The women's team is a three-time champion of the Big Apple Classic, which is hosted on Randalls Island, New York. They also won the 2004 East Coast Division 3 Collegiate Championship in the spring of 2005.
From the 1920's onwards, Fordham had kept a live bighorn sheep on campus, each of whom were named Ramses and numbered accordingly. However, the rams were often the victims of kidnapping schemes by students from rival institutions before football games or other big match-ups, especially by nearby fellow Catholic institution and long-time athletic rivals Manhattan College. Rameses XIX made the local news when Manhattan College students kidnapped him, dyed him green (Manhattan College colors) and left him in front of the Madison Square Garden Circus. Ramses XXVIII was the last live mascot and had to be put down in 1978 due to gangrene caused by an injury. The university has never had a live mascot since then.
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