The Seattle Redhawks are the intercollegiate varsity athletic teams of

Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...

of Seattle, Washington. They compete in the NCAA's Division I as a member institution of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC).

History

Between 1950 and 1971, Seattle competed as an NCAA Division I independent, then joined the West Coast Athletic Conference (now West Coast Conference) in 1971. The Chieftains gained national attention in early 1952 when the basketball team defeated the

Harlem Globetrotters The Harlem Globetrotters are an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, and comedy in their style of play. Created in 1926 by Tommy Brookins in Chicago, Illinois, the team adopted the name ''Harlem'' because of i ...

. Seattle was led by the O'Brien twins, Eddie and

Johnny Johnny is an English language personal name. It is usually an affectionate diminutive of the masculine given name John, but from the 16th century it has sometimes been a given name in its own right for males and, less commonly, females. Varia ...

, of South Amboy, New Jersey; Johnny became the first college player to score 1,000 points in a season and both were named All-Americans. The twins led Seattle to the NIT in

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...

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

, and then onto its first NCAA Tournament berth in

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito i ...

. The O'Briens were selected in the 1953 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Hawks but were also standouts in baseball. Upon graduation, Eddie and Johnny opted for the diamond and played together in the major leagues with the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...

from

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

. Eddie (1930–2014) was later the baseball coach and athletic director at SU. Seattle has eight wins (plus two consolation game victories) in eleven NCAA basketball tournament appearances (all from

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

); half of the wins came in

when the Chieftains advanced to the championship game at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky, against the University of Kentucky. Seattle was led by consensus All-American and future

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor of Washington, D.C., who was named

most outstanding player The term Most Outstanding Player may refer to: * The recipient of the CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award * The NCAA basketball tournament Most Outstanding Player award * The College World Series Most Outstanding Player in college baseball * The N ...

of the tournament. In the semifinal on Friday night against tournament favorite Kansas State, he scored 23 points and grabbed 22 rebounds as Seattle won by 22 points in an upset rout, 73–51. In the final the next night,

John Castellani John Louis Castellani (August 23, 1926 – May 11, 2021) was an American attorney and a former basketball coach. He coached the Minneapolis Lakers in the NBA during the 1959–1960 season, their last before relocating to Los Angeles. Prior to ...

's Chieftains led by three points at the half, but Baylor soon picked up his fourth personal foul, which limited his effectiveness in the second half and Adolph Rupp's Wildcats won by a dozen, 84–72. During a period in the 1960s, Seattle led the nation with the number of active players in the NBA. Notable basketball alums include Eddie Miles, Tom Workman, Rod Derline, and Clint Richardson, who won an NBA title with the

Philadelphia 76ers The Philadelphia 76ers, colloquially known as the Sixers, are an American professional basketball team based in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The 76ers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eas ...

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

. Tennis player Tom Gorman led SU before leading the USA

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...

teams in the 1970s.

Janet Hopps Janet Hopps Adkisson (born August 4, 1934) is a former professional tennis player from the U.S. Adkisson was ranked in the top 15 female tennis players three times, and was, according to the State of Washington Sports Hall of Fame, "once recognize ...

(tennis) and Pat Lesser (golf) were trailblazers in the advancement of women's sports in the 1950s competing nationally as a part of the men's teams. Seattle native Ruth Jessen attended for a year and was a top

LPGA The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekl ...

tour player in the 1960s. In 1953, Patricia Lesser won the women's individual intercollegiate golf championship (an event conducted by the

Division of Girls' and Women's Sports The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...

(DGWS) — which later evolved into the current NCAA women's golf championship). In March 1980, due to a recession that crippled the region, the administration contemplated dropping intercollegiate athletics. Two months later, SU voluntarily downgraded its athletic program from NCAA Division I to the small college NAIA, the Chieftains competed at this level for the next 21 years. Under the leadership of university president

Stephen Sundborg Stephen Vincent Sundborg, S.J. (born 1943) is an American Jesuit and theologian. He served as the 21st President of Seattle University from July 1997 to July 2021. Sundborg was raised in the Territory of Alaska. His father, George Walter S ...

, SJ, Seattle changed its nickname from Chieftains to Redhawks in January 2000. Seattle rejoined the NCAA in 2001 and competed in Division III for a year, then in Division II from 2002 to 2009. For the 2009–10 academic year, Seattle's varsity teams played full schedules against Division I opponents. Although it was then a Division I independent, the university had initially hoped to rejoin the

West Coast Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting of ...

(where they played before leaving the NCAA in 1980), since all nine current members were private, religiously affiliated institutions (seven are Catholic and four share Seattle University's

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

affiliation). Seattle also explored membership in the Big Sky Conference, although all of its members played FCS

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

. Seattle once again became eligible for Division I NCAA Championships beginning in 2012–13, and is a full Division I-AAA member (no football) in all 20 sports. During the

2010–14 NCAA conference realignment 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

, the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) saw a large number of their members leave. From 2011 to 2013, twelve schools left the WAC. In June 2011, the WAC invited Seattle to join as a full member beginning July 2012. Seattle accepted soon after for all of the sports it sponsors at the varsity level except rowing, which the WAC does not sponsor and, initially, men's swimming and diving, which the WAC did not sponsor at the time. Men's swimming and diving was added as a WAC-sponsored sport in 2013. The conference dropped football after the 2012 season and in the summer of 2013, only three members from the prior year remained in the conference (Seattle, New Mexico State, and Idaho). The WAC added six new members in 2013, and when Idaho returned to the Big Sky in 2014 (&

Sun Belt The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest. Another rough definition of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel. Several climates can be found in the region — des ...

for football), Seattle became the second-longest tenured WAC school after just three seasons in the league. Since joining the conference, the Redhawks have claimed five team titles and three individual titles, and have had four student-athletes named player of the year.

Stephanie Verdoia Stephanie Ann Verdoia (born January 2, 1993) is an American soccer player who last played for Vålerenga in the Toppserien. Club career After playing four years at Seattle University, Verdoia was drafted by the Boston Breakers with the 29th pic ...

, women's soccer forward, was named two-time WAC Player of the Year, two time Academic All-American and was named an All-American and the Academic All-American of the Year for women's soccer in 2014. Verdoia also received the Senior CLASS Award as the sport's top scholar-athlete nationally and was the named the 2015 Seattle Sports Commission Female Sports Star of the Year. In 2018, Seattle University's board of trustees renamed the Connolly Complex to the Redhawk Center due to Archbishop Thomas Connolly's failure to act on a known abusive priest.

Sports sponsored

Seattle University sponsors teams in nine men's and 11 women's NCAA sanctioned sports: The women's rowing team competes as an independent.

WAC Titles

;Baseball :Regular Season (1): 2016 ;Men's Basketball :Regular Season (1): 2022 ;Men's Golf :Regular Season (1): 2017 ;Men's Soccer :Regular Season (3): 2013, 2015, 2019 :Tournament (5): 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 ;Women's Basketball :Regular Season (1): 2013 :Tournament (1): 2018 ;Women's Cross Country :Regular Season (1): 2014 ;Women's Soccer :Regular Season (6): 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020 :Tournament (5): 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019 ;Softball :Regular Season (1): 2019 :Tournament (2): 2019, 2021

Athletic facilities

*Baseball – Bannerwood Park (capacity 300+) *Men's Basketball –

Redhawk Center Redhawk Center is a 999-seat multi-purpose arena in Seattle, Washington on the campus of Seattle University. It was built in 1959 and is home to the Seattle University Redhawks women's basketball and volleyball teams, as well as the home court for ...

(capacity 999) and

Climate Pledge Arena Climate Pledge Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located north of Downtown Seattle in the entertainment complex known as Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's Fair, for which it was or ...

*Women's Basketball – Redhawk Center *Men's & Women's Cross Country – ''Several Seattle area sites'' *Men's & Women's Golf – The Golf Club at Newcastle ''& other Seattle area courses'' *Rowing – Seattle Rowing Center *Men's & Women's Soccer – Championship Field (capacity 650+) *Softball – Logan Field (capacity 250) *Men's & Women's Swimming & Diving – Redhawk Center Pool *Men's & Women's Tennis – Seattle University Tennis Courts & Amy Yee Tennis Center (City of Seattle) *Men's & Women's Track & Field – ''No Home Facilities'' *Volleyball – Redhawk Center : Source:

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , titlestyle = {{CollegePrimaryStyle, Seattle Redhawks, color=white , list = {{Western Athletic Conference navbox {{Washington Sports {{Seattle Sports {{Division1washingtoncolleges