The Cheyney Wolves are the athletic sports teams for Cheyney University. They compete as an independent and formerly played in the

Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. The conference was originally formed in 1951 as the State Teachers C ...

(PSAC). Women's sports include basketball, cheerleading and volleyball. Basketball is the only men's sport the university currently offers as of 2019.

Basketball

The men's basketball program is 7th all-time 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. ...

win percentage, including 16 PSAC conference championships, four

Final Four In sports, the final four is the last four teams remaining in a playoffs, playoff tournament. Usually the final four compete in the two games of a single-elimination tournament's semi-final (penultimate) round. Of these teams, the two who win in ...

s, and one National Championship (1978), as coached by John Chaney, who coached from 1972 to 1982. In 1982, coached by C. Vivian Stringer, the team competed in the championship game of the inaugural

NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament, sometimes referred to as Women's March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 women's college basketball teams from the Div ...

despite being a Division II school. They are the only

HBCU Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of serving African Americans. Most are in the Southern U ...

to reach a Division I Final Four. After Stringer left in 1983, she was replaced by Winthrop McGriff, who led them to the Final Four in the

1984 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The 1984 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament began on March 16 and ended on April 1. It featured 32 teams, four fewer than the previous year. Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, Cheyney, and Southern California were the Final Four, with Sout ...

, becoming the first Black man to lead a women's team to the Final Four and the only one for three decades. Both Chaney and Stringer would be inducted into the

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pre ...

, making Cheyney one of three schools to have had future Naismith Hall of Fame men’s and women’s basketball head coaches employed at the same time.

Probation

During the 2007–08 through 2010–11 academic years, the university violated NCAA rules in the certification of initial, transfer and continuing eligibility involving all sports programs. During the four-year period, numerous student-athletes competed while ineligible due to improper certification. In amateurism certification alone, 109 student-athletes practiced, competed and received travel expenses and/or athletically related financial aid before the university received their amateurism certification status from the NCAA Eligibility Center. The committee also concluded that a former compliance director failed to monitor when she did not follow proper procedures in the certification of student-athletes’ eligibility. The entire athletics program was on probation until August 2019. For the 2018-19 academic year, Cheyney withdrew from the PSAC and Division II and played that season as an independent. The football team, suspended since being unable to afford the trip to the

Turkey Day Classic The Turkey Day Classic is a college football game, traditionally held annually on Thanksgiving Day. Originally, it was played between Alabama State University and Tuskegee University, two historically black universities. The game was originally p ...

in November 2017, did not play. By 2019, the ''status quo'' from 2018-19 continued; the Wolves offer only basketball and women's volleyball, both of which primarily play Division III and community college teams. By 2024, cross-country and track and field had been re-added for both men and women.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.cheyneyathletics.com