The Southern Oregon Raiders are the athletic teams that represent

Southern Oregon University Southern Oregon University (SOU) is a public university in Ashland, Oregon. It was founded in 1872 as the Ashland Academy, has been in its current location since 1926, and was known by nine other names before assuming its current name in 1997.Kre ...

, located in

Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 in Oregon, Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population w ...

, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for higher education, colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic schola ...

(NAIA), primarily competing in the

Cascade Collegiate Conference The Cascade Collegiate Conference (or Cascade Conference) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Member schools are located in the Northwestern United States and in Britis ...

(CCC) for most of its sports since the 1993–94 academic year; while its football team competes in the

Frontier Conference The Frontier Conference is a List of college athletic conferences in the United States, college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The conference was founded in 1934. Member institut ...

, and its wrestling team competes as an Independent.

History

Southern Oregon University adopted the nickname "Red Raiders" for its sports teams in 1946. The name was in reference to the abundant Native American tribe, the

Modoc people The Modoc are an Indigenous American people who historically lived in the area which is now northeastern California and central Southern Oregon. Currently, they include two federally recognized tribes, the Klamath Tribes in Oregon and the Mo ...

, that had existed in Southern Oregon. In 1980 "Red" was removed from the nickname. The

red-tailed hawk The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members of ...

was adopted in 1998 to appease campus groups calling for a mascot and still respecting the Native American culture. The athletics logo of Southern Oregon has been through 7 editions, the most recent coming in 2011.

Varsity teams

Southern Oregon competes in 20 intercollegiate varsity sports:

Championships

All NAIA titles:

National championships

Conference championships

Facilities

Raider Stadium

Raider Stadium was built in 1983 and cost $1.55 million and is the home venue for Southern Oregon's

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

and

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

teams. The stadium seats 4,000 with a covered grandstand on the west side of the field and risers on the east side. The field at the stadium, named Fuller Field after John Fuller, has been the home field of the Raiders' football team since 1955. In 1999 the Meyer Fitness Center, which lies under the grandstand, was renovated to include a second floor, effectively doubling the floor space available for use.

McNeal Pavilion

Completed in 1957, McNeal Pavilion played host to both men's and women's

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

, 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 Summ ...

and

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 ...

. The first of two changes to McNeal occurred in 1990 when the seating in the main arena was doubled to 1,400 during a complete building renovation. The second change happened during the 1998–99 season and involved resurfacing the gym floor and installing 550 new seat-backs for the seats on the east side of the gym. McNeal Pavilion also included a swimming pool, racquetball courts, a rock climbing gym, and training rooms. McNeal was torn down in 2016.

University Field

Behind the scoreboard at Raider Stadium lies University Field. Used from 2000 until 2014 for women's

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 ...

, the field used risers as its sole type of seating. Soccer has been played at Raider Stadium since 2014.

Softball Complex

Softball Complex, formerly a baseball field, is a collection of three regulation fields with 500 seats at the main field. The complex has been used solely for

softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

, as the University does not play

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

, since the program was reinstated in 2000 after a 17-year hiatus.

References

External links

* {{Frontier Conference navbox