The Rider Broncs are the athletic teams of Rider University, a private nonsectarian university in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, United States. The school is a Division I member of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA), and its athletes compete in the

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC, ) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I. Of its current 11 full members, 10 are located in three states of the northeastern United States: Connecticut, New Jersey, and ...

(MAAC). For wrestling only, Rider is an affiliate member of the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the t ...

(MAC). The

intercollegiate sports College athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games. World University Games The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale des É ...

program at Rider was started by coach Clair Bee in the 1920s. Two of the school's most famous athletic alumni are former Notre Dame basketball coach and current

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

sportscaster

Digger Phelps Richard Frederick "Digger" Phelps (born July 4, 1941) is an American former college basketball coach, most notably of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish from 1971 to 1991. For 20 years, from 1993 to 2014, he served as an analyst on ESPN. He got the n ...

, who played basketball at Rider from 1959 to 1963 and Jason Thompson who played basketball at Rider from 2004 to 2008 and was drafted by the

Sacramento Kings The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the oldest ...

with the 12th pick of the 2008 NBA Draft.

Men's sports

Baseball

See footnoteBaseball
Rider Broncs (Rider University Athletics official website). Retrieved 2010-02-21. The baseball team has won three MAAC championships (2008, 2010, 2021), three NEC titles (1994, 1995, 1996), and six ECC titles (1984-1987, 1989, 1992) and participated in 15 NCAA Regional Tournaments and one College World Series (1967). The baseball team plays its home games at Sonny Pittaro Field on campus.

Men's basketball

Alumnus Jason Thompson started his NBA career in 2008.

Men's cross country

Men's
golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

Austin Devereux won the individual title at the 2021 &2022 MAAC Championships, becoming the first Rider golfer to compete in the NCAA Championships since 1964. The 2022 team won the school's first MAAC title on April 24, 2022 at Walt Disney World's Magnolia course.

Men's soccer

The Men's Soccer team has won one NEC Championship (1992) and five MAAC Championships (1997, 1998, 2015, 2016, 2018) and participated in five NCAA tournaments.

Men's swimming and diving

The men's swimming and diving team has won 10 MAAC Championships (2004, 2012-2020) and has won the last nine titles in a row.

Men's
tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

Men's
track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

Men’s track and field has won one MAAC Indoor Championship (2017) and three MAAC Outdoor Championships (2004, 2011, 2013) and is currently coached by Penn State All-American Bob Hamer (Penn State).

Men's wrestling

Rider wrestling practices in a 3,600 square foot mat room on the top floor of the Canastra Health & Sports Center while home meets are held in Alumni Gym, which seats 1,650. In 2013, Rider left the

CAA CAA may refer to: Law * Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 of India ** Protests regarding the Citizenship (Amendment) Act * Copyright assignment agreement, to transfer copyright to another party * Clean Air Act, United States law to reduce air ...

as an associate member shortly after the CAA announced that it would no longer sponsor wrestling and joined the

Eastern Wrestling League The Eastern Wrestling League (EWL) was an NCAA Division I wrestling-only conference. It was made up mostly of schools from the northeastern United States whose primary conferences did not sponsor wrestling as an NCAA-qualifying event. The teams h ...

. On March 5, 2019 it was announced that Rider along with the other six members of the EWL would be joining the

as affiliate members starting in academic year 2019-2020, making the MAC the second largest conference in Division I Wrestling. The Broncs won the MAC East Division in their first season in the MAC. Rider Broncs Wrestling has gained national recognition by longtime head coach Gary Taylor, who retired after the 2016-17 season. Former Rider All-American John Hangey was named his replacement. The Broncs have had 18 individual All-American wrestlers, including four in Taylor's last three seasons. Jesse Dellavecchia finished runner-up at 157 in the 2021 NCAA Championships.

Women's sports

Women's basketball

Rider's women's basketball team has made the WNIT twice (2017, 2019) and finished as the #1 seed in the MAAC in 2019-2020. Stella Johnson became the first Lady Bronc to score 2,000 points on February 20, 2020 against Quinnipiac. She was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2020 WNBA draft by the

Phoenix Mercury The Phoenix Mercury are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona, playing in the Western Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team was founded before the league's inaugural 1997 season ...

, with the 29th overall pick. She was waived by the Mercury before the start of the season, but was signed by the Chicago Sky on June 29, 2020. On July 28, she made her WNBA debut in a win over the Los Angeles Sparks. On August 12, she was waived by the Sky. On August 13, the Washington Mystics signed Johnson after they were issued an emergency hardship waiver.

Women's cross country

Women's
field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

The field hockey team now competes in the NEC, where the Broncs have won seven titles (2000, 2002, 2004, 2010-2012, 2020*), played in six NCAA Play-In games and one NCAA Tournament (2020*). *2020 season was played in spring 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic

Women's soccer

The women's soccer team has won one MAAC title (2014) and participated in one NCAA Tournament (2014).

Women's softball

The softball team has won one NEC Championship (1997), one MAAC Championship (2003) and participated in two NCAA tournaments (1997, 2003).

Women's swimming and diving

The women's swimming and diving team has won three MAAC Championships (2001, 2003, 2009).

Women's
tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

Women's
track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

The women's track and field team has won two MAAC Indoor Championships (2007, 2020) and three MAAC Outdoor Championships (2004, 2007, 2013).

Women's
volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

The women's volleyball team has won three NEC championships (1994–96), one MAAC Championship (2020*) and played in four NCAA Championships (1994–96, 2020*). They have won one match (1994 vs. Army). *2020 season was played in spring 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic

Athletics Hall of Fame

For an alphabetical list of inductees, see footnote As of June 13, 2011, there are 98 members in the Rider University Athletics

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actual halls or muse ...

. The first inductions were in October 1990.

Notable alumni

Footnotes

External links

* {{Navboxes , titlestyle = {{CollegePrimaryStyle, Rider Broncs, color=white , list = {{Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference navbox {{Northeast Conference navbox {{Mid-American Conference navbox {{New Jersey College Sports {{NewJerseysports {{NewYorksports Sports teams in the New York metropolitan area