The La Salle Explorers are the varsity sports teams from La Salle University in Philadelphia. The Explorers compete in

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

as members of the

Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I. The A-10's member schools are located most ...

. The men's and women's basketball teams also participate in the Philadelphia Big 5. On June 3, 2019, Brian Baptiste was named director of athletics and recreation effective August 1, 2019. Baptiste is deputy AD for capital projects and operations at Northwestern University.

Overview

The Explorers name

The Explorers nickname derives from a famous mistake made by a local

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

sportswriter. The writer thought the university was named after the French

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

Sieur de La Salle, when in fact it is named after St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle. The nickname caught on, however, and has remained ever since.

The rivalry

La Salle's major historic rival has been the Hawks of the Saint Joseph's University, especially in men's basketball. Not only are both schools situated in Philadelphia, but they are also both

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, private institutions and are both members of both the Atlantic 10 and the Big 5.

National championships

La Salle's teams have won two national championships: the 1954 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament and the 1980

AIAW The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was a college athletics organization in the United States, founded in 1971 to govern women's college competitions in the country and to administer national championships (see AIAW Cham ...

Field Hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

Championship. The school also won the 1952 National Invitation Tournament when that tournament was still considered to be on par with the NCAA tournament.

Sports sponsored

;Notes A member of the

, La Salle University sponsors teams in 7 men's and 11 women's

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. ...

sanctioned sports, plus one men's sport that is not recognized by the NCAA. The most recently added varsity sports are women's golf and men's and women's water polo, all added for 2016–17. Baseball was dropped after the 2021 season (2020–21 school year), but will be reinstated for the 2026 season. At the same time that baseball is reinstated, La Salle will add three new women's sports, all included in the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program—acrobatics & tumbling, rugby, and triathlon.

Men's basketball

The men's basketball team has won eight City Championships (four were shared). In addition to the national championship and NIT Championship, La Salle was also a national finalist in the 1955 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament and was named the 53rd "Greatest College Basketball Program of All-Time" by Street & Smith's in January 2005. Only

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

(7) and UCLA (4) have had more National Players of the Year than La Salle, which has had three---

Lionel Simmons Lionel James "L-Train" Simmons (born November 14, 1968) is an Americans, American former professional basketball player. Early life Simmons led South Philadelphia High School to a Philadelphia Public League boys' championship in 1986, getting an ...

, Michael Brooks, and Tom Gola. Tom Gola was listed on "ESPN's Countdown to the Greatest" College basketball players as #17.

Women's basketball

The women's basketball team began play in the 1972–73 season, and has been to the

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 ...

5 times.

Football

La Salle discontinued football at the end the 2007 season.

Wrestling

La Salle

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

was dropped from the varsity sports program in 1998.

Club sports

In addition to its varsity sports, La Salle also sponsors a number of club sports. These include: *

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

*Men's

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

*Men's Rugby * Ultimate Frisbee *Women's Rugby *Wrestling

Professional sports alumni

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , titlestyle = {{CollegePrimaryStyle, La Salle Explorers, color=white , list = {{Atlantic 10 Conference navbox {{Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference navbox {{Philadelphia Sports {{Pennsylvania Sports Philadelphia Big 5