The

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

's intercollegiate sports teams, called the MIT Engineers, compete mostly in

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. ...

Division III. MIT has won 22 Team National Championships and 42 Individual National Championships. MIT is the all-time Division III leader in producing Academic All-Americans (302) and ranks second across all NCAA Divisions. MIT athletes have won 13 Elite 90 awards, ranking MIT first among NCAA Division III programs and third among all divisions. Most of the school's sports compete in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC), with sports not sponsored by the NEWMAC housed in several other conferences. Men's volleyball competes in the single-sport United Volleyball Conference. One MIT sport, women's rowing, competes in Division I in the

Patriot League The Patriot League is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference comprising primarily leading Private university, private institutions of higher education and two United States service academies based in the Northeastern United ...

. Men's water polo, a sport in which the NCAA holds a single national championship for all three of its divisions, competes in the

Collegiate Water Polo Association The Collegiate Water Polo Association is a conference of colleges and universities in the Eastern United States that sponsor 19 men's teams and 17 women's teams that compete in varsity water polo. The winners of the conference tournaments earn ...

(CWPA) alongside Division I and Division II members. Three sports compete outside NCAA governance: men's rowing competes in the

Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges The Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) is a college athletic conference of fifteen men's college rowing crews. It is an affiliate of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). Members Fifteen colleges and universities are membe ...

(EARC), sailing in the

New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association The New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association (NEISA) is one of the seven conferences affiliated with the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) that schedule and administer regattas within their established geographic regions. NEISA i ...

of ICSA and squash in the College Squash Association. In April 2009, budget cuts led to MIT's eliminating eight of its 41 sports, including the mixed men's and women's teams in alpine skiing and pistol; separate teams for men and women in ice hockey and gymnastics; and men's programs in golf and wrestling.

Varsity sports

Mascot

The

beaver Beavers (genus ''Castor'') are large, semiaquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere. There are two existing species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-large ...

, "nature's engineer", was adopted as

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...

at the annual dinner of the Technology Club of New York on January 17, 1914 by a group of MIT alumni. The late President Richard Maclaurin formally accepted the proposal, and at this dinner a group of beavers shown in natural surroundings was presented to the Institute. Lester Gardner, a member of the Class of 1898, provided the following justification: "The beaver not only typifies the Tech, but his habits are particularly our own. The beaver is noted for his engineering and mechanical skills and habits of industry. His habits are nocturnal. He does his best work in the dark." The beaver has since been nicknamed Tim the Beaver, Tim being

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

spelled backwards.

Nickname and song

The initial MIT football team was nicknamed the Techmen. After being discontinued in 1901 and self-reinstated by a group of students in 1978, the team called themselves the Engineers, which then become tradition until now. The team also revived the old fighting song, now dubbed as "The Beaver Calls". The lyric reads:

NCAA championships

Team

Individual

Individual teams

Ice hockey

MIT's men's ice hockey team was one of the earliest collegiate hockey programs in the United States. It "was organized in the winter of 1899 to introduce the Canadian game of Hockey in the Institute". The team has played almost continually since.

Facilities

Sources:Facilities
on Mitathletics.com MIT Z Center

References

External links

* {{Massachusetts Sports