The Saint Louis Billikens are the collegiate athletic teams that represent

Saint Louis University Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Missi ...

, located in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. The Billikens compete in Division I of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association 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. ...

(NCAA) as a member 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 ...

(where they are the westernmost member, and both the first member located west of the Mississippi and in the Central Time Zone). The school has nationally recognized

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

programs for

men A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy. Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the fa ...

and

women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

. The school has heavily invested in its on-campus athletic facilities since the 1990s with the creation of

Hermann Stadium Robert R. Hermann Stadium is a soccer-specific stadium located in Midtown St. Louis, Missouri, on the campus of Saint Louis University. The first game played was August 21, 1999. This is where both the Billiken men's and women's soccer teams pl ...

and

Chaifetz Arena Chaifetz Arena ( ), is a 10,600 seat multi-purpose arena in St. Louis, Missouri, located on the Saint Louis University campus. The arena began construction on August 28, 2006, and opened on April 10, 2008. In February 2007, Chicago-based busine ...

. Chris May is the current director of athletics of the St. Louis Billikens.

The Billiken name

An early SLU football coach,

John R. Bender John Reinhold "Chief" Bender (May 14, 1882 – July 24, 1928) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Black Hills State University (1905), Washington State University ...

, is said to have been the inspiration for the nickname "Billikens," which is still used by the school's athletic teams. During the 1911 season, according to one version of the story, local sportswriters commented that Bender bore an uncanny resemblance to a charm doll called a

Billiken The Billiken is a doll, charm doll created by an American art teacher and illustrator, Florence Pretz of Kansas City, Missouri, who is said to have seen the mysterious figure in a dream. It is believed that Pretz found the name Billiken in Bliss ...

, which was a national fad at the time. His squad became known as "Bender's Billikens" and the name stuck.

Sports sponsored

A member of the

, St. Louis University sponsors teams in eight men's and ten 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.

Baseball

In 2006, the Billiken baseball team earned the program's first NCAA tournament berth since 1966 by winning the Atlantic 10 Tournament. SLU's most successful baseball team of all time was the 1965 squad, which qualified for the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the

College World Series The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is a baseball tournament held each June in Omaha, Nebraska. It is the culmination of the NCAA Division I baseball tournament—featuring 64 teams in the ...

. Darin Hendrickson has been the head coach since 2008 and guided the Billikens to NCAA Tournament appearances in 2010 and 2013. The team plays at the

Billiken Sports Center The Billiken Sports Center is a baseball venue in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. It is home to the Saint Louis Billikens baseball team of the NCAA Division I Atlantic 10 Conference. The facility also includes the softball venue used sinc ...

Basketball

Simply known to some as "The Program", the Billikens were ranked first in the first AP basketball poll during the 1948–1949 season.

Ed Macauley Charles Edward Macauley (March 22, 1928 – November 8, 2011) was a professional basketball player and coach. His playing nickname was "Easy Ed". Macauley played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1949 to 1959 for the St. Louis B ...

of the

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 pres ...

and SLU won the NIT championship in

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

and have played in the NIT 18 times, most recently in 2004.

Larry Hughes Larry Darnell Hughes Sr. (born January 23, 1979) is an American former professional basketball player. Hughes played for eight different teams during his 14-year career in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Hughes attended Saint Louis Un ...

of the

Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Central Division of the Eastern Conference. The team was founded on January 16 ...

played one season at SLU in the 1997–1998 season, where he was selected as the consensus national Freshman of the Year. They have made the

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as March Madness, or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the NCAA Division I, Di ...

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, ...

1957 Events January * January 1 – The Saarland joins West Germany. * January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch. * January 5 – South African player Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be Dismissal (cricke ...

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

and

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

. The Billikens are currently coached by

Josh Schertz Josh Schertz is an American basketball coach who is the currently the head coach at Saint Louis University. Coaching career Schertz's coaching career began as a student assistant with Florida Atlantic for the 1999–2000 season. He then moved ...

and has a popular celebrity fan base including

John Stamos John Phillip Stamos ( ; born August 19, 1963) is an American actor and musician. He first gained recognition for his contract role as Blackie Parrish on the ABC television soap opera ''General Hospital'', for which he was nominated for the ...

Ruben Studdard Ruben Studdard (born September 12, 1978) is an American singer and actor. He rose to fame as the winner of the second season of ''American Idol'' and received a Grammy Award nomination in 2003 for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his recordi ...

, and

Lil' Kim Kimberly Denise Jones (born July 11, 1974), Those giving 1974 include: * * * * * better known by her stage name Lil' Kim, is an American rapper. She was born and raised in New York City and lived much of her adolescent life on the streets after ...

. The Program officially relocated from the Bauman-Eberhardt Center, the third oldest facility in NCAA Division I sports, to

on the eastern edge of campus for spring workouts in early April 2008. Coach

Rick Majerus Richard Raymond Majerus (February 17, 1948 – December 1, 2012) was an American basketball coach and TV analyst. He coached at Marquette University (1983–1986), Ball State University (1987–1989), the University of Utah (1989–2004), and S ...

died December 1, 2012.

Soccer

The men's soccer team has won 10 national titles (1959–60, 1962–63, 1965, 1967, 1969–70, 1972–73), the most in NCAA Men's Soccer Championship history. SLU also holds the record for most NCAA Tournament appearances with 44. Several Billikens have gone on to play professionally, including

Shane Battelle Shane Battelle (born October 5, 1971) is a retired American soccer player who played with the Columbus Crew in Major League Soccer. College After capping off his senior year at Hazelwood Central High School with a state championship, Missouri P ...

, Brad Davis,

Vedad Ibišević Vedad Ibišević (; born 6 August 1984) is a Bosnian former professional footballer who played as a forward. He is a currently assistant coach of the New York Red Bulls. Ibišević started his professional career at Paris Saint-Germain. He had ...

Brian McBride Brian Robert McBride (born June 19, 1972) is an American former association football, soccer player who played as a forward (association football), forward for Columbus Crew, Fulham F.C., Fulham and Chicago Fire SC, Chicago Fire. He is the sixt ...

Matt McKeon Matthew John McKeon (born September 24, 1974) is an American retired soccer midfielder who played seven seasons in Major League Soccer. He earned two caps with the United States men's national soccer team and was a member of the 1996 U.S. Olymp ...

Al Trost Alan Trost (born February 7, 1949) is an American former professional soccer player who played as a midfielder. He played collegiate soccer at Saint Louis University where he won the 1969 and 1970 Hermann Trophy as the player of the year. His ...

Dipsy Selolwane Diphetogo "Dipsy" Selolwane (born 27 January 1978) is a Motswana former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. He has also played as a striker in Major League Soccer. Club career Selolwane first played for Gaborone United in the ...

Mike Sorber Michael Steven Sorber (born May 14, 1971) is an American soccer coach and former player. He most recently served as an assistant head coach for Toronto FC in Major League Soccer. He played professionally in the United States and Mexico and wa ...

, Joe Clarke, Bob Madison, Martin Hutton,

Jack Jewsbury Jack Jewsbury (born April 13, 1981) is a retired American soccer player who played primarily as a midfielder. Upon his retirement in 2016, Jewsbury was one of ten players to have appeared in more than 350 matches in Major League Soccer. Career Y ...

, Tim Ward,

Brett Branan Brett Branan (born February 17, 1983, in Atlanta) is a defender who last played for American USL First Division side Minnesota Thunder. His older brother Dustin Branan also played professional soccer. He played for the Thunder for two seasons, ma ...

, Will John, and

Tim Ream Timothy Michael Ream (born October 5, 1987) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a center-back for Major League Soccer club Charlotte FC and captains the United States national team. Youth and college soccer Born in St. Lo ...

. The soccer team plays at

on campus. Since 2018,

Kevin Kalish Kevin Kalish is an American soccer coach and former player who, as of 2018, was serving as head coach of the Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer, Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer team. He played professionally in the NPSL II, National Professio ...

has been the head coach. Legion 1818 is the official supporters group for the team.

NCAA Championships

* Men's Soccer: 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967(co-champion), 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973

Swimming and Diving

Saint Louis University head swimming and diving coach Jim Halliburton was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame on Nov. 5 2018, during a ceremony held at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis. Now in his 18th season at Saint Louis, Halliburton has guided the Billiken men’s and women’s teams to more than 500 victories. He ranks sixth in career wins among NCAA Division I swim coaches.

Softball

Under head coach Christy Connoyer, the Billikens won their first Atlantic 10 Conference regular season title in 2023. However, the team has yet to win the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament and subsequently has failed to appear in the

NCAA Division I softball tournament The NCAA Division I softball tournament is held annually in May/June and features 64 college softball teams in the United States, culminating in the Women's College World Series (WCWS), which is played in Oklahoma City. Tournament play and team ...

Volleyball

Under head coach Anne Kordes, the women's volleyball team made its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2006, the program's first post-season bid since earning a spot in the 1995 National Invitation Tournament. The Billikens returned to the NCAA Tournament in 2008 and finished the season ranked No. 8 in the RPI and No. 21 in the final Bison/AVCA Coaches Top 25 Poll. Kordes led the Billikens back to the NCAA Tournament in 2009, receiving an at-large bid. The team plays its home games in the Chaifetz Pavilion on the eastern edge of campus.

Football

The university fielded an intercollegiate squad from 1899 to 1949, going undefeated in 1901, 1904 and 1906. The final home game for the Billikens was on November 24, 1949, a 35–0 loss against

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

. Saint Louis finished the 1949 season with a 2–6–1 record. St. Louis competed at the club level during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although the school no longer has a football team, they made a lasting mark on the sport as the 1906 team, coached by

Eddie Cochems Edward Bulwer Cochems (; February 4, 1877 – April 9, 1953) was an American football player and coach. He played football for the University of Wisconsin from 1898 to 1901 and was the head football coach at North Dakota Agricultural College—n ...

, threw the first legal

forward pass In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The legal and widespread use of the forward pass distinguishes grid ...

in college football history,

Bradbury Robinson Bradbury Norton Robinson Jr. (February 1, 1884 – March 7, 1949) was a pioneering American football player, physician, nutritionist, conservationist and local politician. He played college football at the University of Wisconsin in 1903 and at ...

to Jack Schneider on September 5, 1906, vs.

Carroll College Carroll College is a private Catholic college in Helena, Montana. The college has 21 buildings on a 63-acre campus, has over 35 academic majors, participates in 15 NAIA athletic sports, and is home to All Saints Chapel. The college motto, in L ...

Waukesha, Wisconsin Waukesha ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 71,158 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located along the Fox River (Illinois River tributary), Fox River adjacent to th ...

Conferences

SLU has had six conference affiliations since 1937. SLU has been affiliated with the

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the fourth-oldest collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the Midwestern Unite ...

(1937–1974); the defunct

Metro Conference The Metropolitan Collegiate Athletic Conference, popularly known as the Metro Conference, was an NCAA Division I athletics conference, so named because its six charter members were all in urban metropolitan areas, though its later members di ...

(1975–1982); the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, now known as the

Horizon League The Horizon League is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the league's eleven member schools are located in ...

(1982–1991); the defunct

Great Midwest Conference The Great Midwest Conference was an NCAA Division I athletics conference that existed from 1991 to 1995. History It was formed in 1990 with six members: Cincinnati and Memphis State (now Memphis) from the Metro Conference, UAB from the Sun Be ...

(1991–1995) and

Conference USA Conference USA (CUSA) is a collegiate athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas. Mem ...

(which was created by a merger between the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences). SLU joined the

in 2005. The Bilikens were a charter member of Conference USA in 1995, but left to join the A10 in 2005. By the time Saint Louis left C-USA, it was one of four members of the conference without football programs. The other three also left C-USA in 2005.

Charlotte Charlotte most commonly refers to: *Charlotte (given name), a feminine form of the given name Charles ** Princess Charlotte (disambiguation) ** Queen Charlotte (disambiguation) *Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, a city * Charlotte (cake) ...

, which joined the A10 at alongside SLU, returned to C-USA in 2013, the same year it launched a football program (becoming the only one of the four schools that now plays football). DePaul and Marquette both left for the

Big East Conference The Big East Conference (stylized as BIG EAST) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference that competes in National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA NCAA Division I, Division I in 10 men's sports and 12 women's sports. H ...

, and in 2013 became two of the "

Catholic 7 The Big East Conference (stylized as BIG EAST) is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in 10 men's sports and 12 women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the 11 full-member schools are primarily located in N ...

" that formed the core of the reconfigured Big East Conference.

Club sports

Ice hockey

SLU fields an

American Collegiate Hockey Association The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) is a college ice hockey association. The ACHA's purpose is to be an organization of collegiate affiliated programs, which provides structure, regulates operations, and promotes quality in collegi ...

(ACHA) Division II Men's Ice Hockey team in the Mid-American Collegiate Hockey Association (MACHA). The team plays home games at the Webster Groves Ice Arena Webster Groves, MO. Up until the 2006 season, SLU Hockey and Saint Louis University were working together to build an arena that would not only house the SLU Hockey team, but local youth organizations and campus uses. Ultimately, plans fell through and the team continues to call Webster Groves Ice Rink their home rink. In 2011, the Billikens captured their first MACHA Gold Championship and advanced to the Central Region Qualifier before falling two games short of a National Championship birth. In 2013, SLU Hockey hosted the ACHA Men's Division II National Championships at the Hardee's Iceplex in Chesterfield, MO. 16 teams from around the United States competed for the right to claim the National Championship. SLU Hockey went 1-2 in pool play and failed to advance and Michigan State University would claim the National Championship. The tournament also featured a St. Louis Blues Alumni vs. ACHA Division II All-Stars game to raise money for local charities around the St. Louis area. In 2013, rumors of a new hockey rink being built on or near SLU campus began to surface that would finally bring the SLU Hockey team and youth hockey back to the city of St. Louis. This new facility would act both as the St. Louis Blues (NHL) Official Practice Facility and home for SLU Hockey. Meeting between former SLU President Lawrence Biondi and Blues executive Bruce Affleck were rumored to have taken place and locations scouted for a possible rink. Saint Louis University once fielded an

Division I hockey program that played in the CCHA from the 1970–1971 season until the program ended in 1979. The team was a strong team in the CCHA and over the nine seasons of play SLU made the championship six times. The current club hockey team began play during the 1996–1997 season as a member of ACHA Division I.

Lacrosse

Saint Louis University (SLU) Men's Lacrosse team competes in the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA) Division II and the Great Rivers Lacrosse Conference (GRLC). The program was founded in 1992. SLU has previously placed players on the All-American, 1st Team, 2nd Team, 3rd Team All-Conference, Honorable Mention Lists and the MCLA Scholar Athletes. The team is compiled mostly from students, who have played in elite Jesuit & Catholic high school programs across the country. Each individual brings their own unique skills, talents, and tricks. SLU Lax is known to play games commonly on the SLU Medical Center Stadium. Every year SLU competes against big Missouri schools such as Lindenwood University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Missouri State University just to name a few.

Coaching history

* 2009 – Matt Gardiner, currently the Commissioner for the GRLC * 2010 – Ron Kelam * 2011 – Michael Van * 2012–present – Jimmy Greene

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , titlestyle ={{CollegePrimaryStyle, Saint Louis Billikens, border=2, color=white , list = {{Atlantic 10 Conference navbox {{Missouri Sports