The
Michigan State Spartans are the athletic team that represent Michigan State
University
. The school's athletic program includes 23
varsity sports teams.
Their mascot is a
Spartan warrior named Sparty
, and the
school colors are green and white. The university
participates in the
NCAA's Division I-A
and in the
Big Ten Conference in
all Varsity sports except ice hockey, which competes in the
Central Collegiate
Hockey Association. Michigan State offers 11 varsity sports for
men and 12 for women.
The university's athletic director is Mark Hollis, who was promoted
to the position on January 1, 2008. Hollis replaced
Ron Mason, who also served as head hockey coach
from 1979 to 2002, retiring with a 608–261–64 record at MSU.
MSU's
football team has won or shared
three national championships in 1952, 1965, and 1966, and has won
the Rose
Bowl
in 1954, 1956, and 1988. Its men's
basketball team won the
NCAA National
Championship in 1979 and 2000. The MSU men's
ice hockey has won
national titles in 1966,
1986, and 2007. MSU's golf team won the Big Ten Championship in
1969 and again in 2005.
History
In 1925, the institution changed its name to
Michigan State
College of Agriculture and Applied Science, and as an
agricultural school, its teams were referred to as the Aggies.
Looking to move beyond its agricultural roots, Michigan State held
a contest to find a new nickname. They decided to call the teams
the "Michigan Staters". Local sports writers for the
Lansing State Journal and the Capital
News went through the losing entries to find a shorter and more
heroic name. They decided on the "
Spartans". By coincidence, Justin Morrill had
once compared the Land Grant colleges to the schools of ancient
Sparta. With a heroic name and a historic precedent, the "Spartans"
quickly caught on as the teams' new nickname. Within a few years,
the College changed the lyrics of the
Fight Song to reflect
the name change of the College and its sports teams.
|
Rose Bowls |
| 1954 |
Michigan State |
28 |
UCLA |
20 |
| 1956 |
Michigan State |
17 |
UCLA |
14 |
| 1966 |
UCLA |
14 |
Michigan State |
12 |
| 1988 |
Michigan State |
20 |
Southern California |
17 |
As the college grew in size, it looked to join a major collegiate
conference.
When the University of Chicago
eliminated varsity football
and withdrew from the Western Conference (now the Big Ten) in 1946, Michigan State
president John A. Hannah lobbied hard to take its place.
Despite opposition from the University of Michigan, the Big Ten
finally admitted M.S.C. in 1949. After joining the conference, head
football coach
Clarence L. "Biggie" Munn led
the Spartan football team to the Rose Bowl in the 1953–54 season, beating UCLA
28–20. Successor coach
Hugh "Duffy" Daugherty carried the football
team to a second Rose Bowl where it again defeated UCLA, 17–14.
In more recent years, Michigan State's successes and failures in
the
Final Four have resulted in clashes
involving the police in 1997, 1998, and 1999. Local and national
news referred to the disturbances as riots.
After several years
without any major incidents, another disturbance broke out on April
2, 2005 after the North Carolina
's men's basketball team defeated MSU in the 2005
NCAA
Final Four. Officially called a
"civil disturbance," the ensuing violence sparked accusations of
police brutality in East
Lansing.
Varsity sports
Michigan State has 23
NCAA Division I-A
varsity teams: 11 varsity sports for
men and 12 for women. They participate in the
Big Ten Conference in all sports except
ice hockey, which competes in the
Central Collegiate Hockey
Association and fencing which is a club sport at Michigan
State.
Basketball
MSU's men's basketball team has won the
National
Championship twice: in 1979 and 2000.
In 1979, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, along with Greg Kelser, Jay
Vincent, and Mike Brkovich, carried the MSU team to a 75–64 win
against the Larry Bird-led Indiana
State
Sycamores. In 2000, three players from Flint, Michigan
, Morris Peterson,
Charlie Bell, and Mateen Cleaves carried the team to its second
national title. Dubbed the "Flintstones", they were the key
to the Spartans' win against the University of Florida
. Lost to UNC 89-72 in the 2009 NCAA National
Championship game.
On December 13, 2003, Michigan State and
Kentucky
played at the most-attended basketball game in
history, when they played a match in front of 78,130 at Ford Field
, a stadium in Detroit
. Kentucky won 79–74. Since 1995, Michigan
State has been coached by
Tom Izzo, who has
a 309–131 record. Izzo's coaching helped the team make four of
seven NCAA
Final Fours from 1999 to 2005,
winning the title in 2000.Michigan State basketball has been
selected for 12 consecutive NCAA tournament bids from 1998 to 2009,
making five final fours during that span. This span has provided
every four-year player under Tom Izzo the opportunity to play in a
final four. Overall, Michigan State has made it to the final four
seven times and has made 24 NCAA Tournament appearances.
Spartans formerly or currently in the
NBA include
Earvin "Magic" Johnson,
Shawn Respert,
Steve Smith,
Greg Kelser,
Jay
Vincent,
Steve Smith,
Scott Skiles,
Jason Richardson,
Mateen Cleaves,
Alan Anderson,
Zach Randolph,
Morris Peterson,
Eric
Snow,
Mike Peplowski,
Charlie Bell,
Shannon Brown,
Maurice
Ager and
Paul Davis.
MSU also has a fairly successful women's basketball team, with its
greatest accomplishment being a national runner-up finish to
Baylor in
2005.
Suzy Merchant took over as head coach
in 2007, and replaced
Joanne P.
McCallie who left MSU to coach for
Duke
University
.
Before
coming to Michigan State, Merchant spent nine years as head coach
of Eastern
Michigan University
's team, where she won the most games in the
school's history. During the 2007–2008 season, the team won
more games, 23, than any other Big Ten team.
Football
Football has a long tradition at
Michigan State. Starting as a club sport in 1884, football gained
varsity status in 1896. During that time, the Spartans had a roster
of impressive players, including Lynn Chandnois, Dorne Dibble, and
Don McAulliffe. In 1951, the Spartans finished the season
undefeated, and performed the same feat the following year in
addition to the nation's longest winning streak of 24 games. The
team was named the "undisputed national champions by every official
poll".
After waiting for several years, the team was finally admitted into
the Big 10 as a regular member in 1953. They promptly went on to
capture the league championship (losing only one game during the
season) and beating UCLA in their first
Rose Bowl game. After the 1953 season
Biggie Munn, the legendary Spartan
coach, turned the team over to his protégé and future legend
Duffy Daugherty. Daughtery went on
to win the
1956 Rose Bowl. George
Perles was the head coach when the Spartans defeated USC in the
1988 Rose Bowl. All told, Michigan
State has won six national championships and nine Big Ten
championships.
Today,
the football team competes in Spartan
Stadium
, a renovated 75,005 person football stadium in the
center of campus. The coach is
Mark
Dantonio, who was hired on November 27, 2006.
Dantonio had an 18–17
record in his three year tenure at the University
of Cincinnati
, including a 1–0 Bowl Game record. Dantonio
replaced
John L. Smith, who finished with a 22–26 record as the
Spartans' head man.
MSU's
traditional archrival is the University of Michigan
, against whom they compete for the Paul Bunyan Trophy. MSU is
traditionally the underdog, with a 30–67–5 record in the annual
game.
Michigan State is one of three Big Ten teams
to have an annual non-conference football game against Notre
Dame
. MSU's record against the Fighting Irish is
25–44–1. One of the most
memorable games
in this series was in 1966 when the teams were ranked first
(Notre Dame) and second (MSU) in the country. The result of the
game was a 10–10 tie when Notre Dame elected not to attempt a score
when they had the ball late in the game.
On the
American Football
League's
All-Time Team are
tight-end
Fred Arbanas and
safety George Saimes. In the
National Football League, MSU
alumni include
Morten Andersen,
Plaxico Burress,
Andre Rison,
Derrick
Mason,
Muhsin Muhammad,
T.J. Duckett,
Flozell Adams,
Julian Peterson,
Charles Rogers,
Jim Miller,
Earl Morrall,
Wayne
Fontes,
Bubba Smith,,
Jim Miller,
Tony Banks,
Percy Snow,
Rob Fredrickson,
Tony Mandarich,
Lorenzo White,
Drew
Stanton and
Devin Thomas. Former
MSU quarterback
Jeff Smoker now plays in
the
Arena Football
League.
Hockey
"The Cold War"
Michigan State has two varsity
hockey teams:
a men's
ice hockey team and a women's
field hockey team. Rolf van de Kerkhof
is the head coach of the women's field hockey team.
A native of Tilburg
, Netherlands
, van de Kerkhof's first win as head coach came on
September 3, 2006, with a 2–1 overtime victory against Temple
University
.
The men's
ice hockey team plays at the Munn Ice
Arena
. The head
coach
is
Rick Comley, who has a 116–73–19
record at MSU. Since the
Big Ten
Conference does not cover Division I
ice
hockey, Michigan State competes in the
Central Collegiate Hockey
Association.
Along with the University
of Michigan (U-M) and the Ohio State University
, it is one of three Big Ten
schools in the CCHA.
On October 6, 2001, the team was involved in the most-attended
hockey game in history: The Cold War.
The
Spartans set up a hockey rink in the middle of their football
stadium, Spartan Stadium and played U-M before a crowd of 74,554. The
game ended in a 3–3 tie.
The MSU ice hockey program has seven
CCHA
regular season championships and 11
CCHA
Tournament titles. MSU has also won 11
Great Lakes Invitational titles.
The Spartans have been in the NCAA tournament 23 times, with nine
Frozen Four appearances and three
national titles (1966,
1986, and
2007). On
April 7, 2007 the Michigan State Spartans won their third
Collegiate Championship by beating the
Boston College Eagles 3–1.
Former Michigan State players in the
National Hockey League include
Rod Brind'Amour,
Anson Carter,
Donald
McSween,
Adam Hall,
John-Michael Liles, Justin Abdlekader,
brothers
Kelly Miller and
Kip Miller, as well as their cousins,
brothers
Ryan Miller and
Drew Miller. Two players for MSU have
won the
Hobey Baker Award:
Kip Miller in 1990 and
Ryan Miller in 2001.
Other sports
MSU has a number of other team sports. As in many other
NCAA institutions, Michigan State has a
baseball team for men and a
softball team for women.
Jake Boss Jr. is
head
coach of the MSU
baseball team. Former
Michigan State players in
Major
League Baseball include
Kirk Gibson,
Steve Garvey,
Robin Roberts, and
Mark Mulder. The MSU women's fastpitch
softball team won the
Association
for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Division I
national title in 1976. Its coach, Jacquie Joseph, has headed the
program since 1994. Since taking over the program, Joseph has
helped bring MSU to a record of 445–372–1 and four NCAA Regional
appearances. The Spartans also have a men's soccer team, which won
two back-to-back championships in 1967 and 1968.
They shared the 1968
title with the University of Maryland, College
Park
. The men's coach is Joe Baum, who is in his
31st year as head coach at Michigan State. Coaching the women's
team is Baum's former assistant, Tom Saxton. There is also a
volleyball team; Cathy George has been the head coach of the
women's
volleyball team since 2005.
During her first year at Michigan State, she led her team to a
12–18 record, including a 5–15, ninth-place finish in the
conference standings.
There are a number of contact sports at MSU, including
boxing and
wrestling. MSU's
boxing team won
national titles in 1951 and 1955,
although it is no longer an NCAA
varsity sport.
Wrestling was one of the earliest sports
formed at the Michigan Agricultural College
. While the sport was dropped in 1906, it was
reformed by the college 15 years later. The school's
wrestling team has won the NCAA Division I
championship once, in 1967. Its current coach, Tom Minkel, has
produced 33
All-Americans, 11 Big Ten
Champions and one NCAA Champion.
Water sports at MSU include rowing and swimming. MSU's women's
rowing crew coach is Matt Weise. In
his third year as MSU head coach, Weise coached the Spartans to a
program-best sixth-place team finish at the
NCAA Championship. Matt Gianiodis
is the head coach of both the men and women's
swimming and
diving. In
his four years as head coach, Spartan swimmers and divers have
broken 14 varsity records.
Other sports at MSU include
cross
country,
golf,
gymnastics, and
tennis.
MSU's Men's cross country team won the
NCAA
Division I championship eight times from 1939 to 1959. Walt Drenth
is the current director of both the men's and women's cross country
and
track & field programs.
After joining MSU in 2004, Drenth led men's cross country team to
an NCAA Championship bid during the 2004 season. The women's cross
country team also advanced to the NCAA Championship Meet after
winning the Great Lakes Regional race.
Golf has had a long tradition at MSU. Hall of Fame Coach Bruce
Fossum helped carry MSU to its first Big Ten title in 1969. The Big
Ten title would elude the Spartans until 2005, when arguably, the
best team ever assembled, took home the rings in stellar fashion.
Not only did the Spartans win the Big Ten Championship in 2005, but
they captured two other titles along the way and rose all the way
to #5 in the U.S. Sam Puryear coaches the men's
golf team.
A former assistant coach at Stanford
University
, this is his first year as a head coach.
Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll coaches the women's team. In the last ten
seasons, she has brought the Spartans to nine straight NCAA
regional appearances.
The men's
gymnastics team at MSU won one national title, which they shared
with the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
in 1958. In 2001, the MSU
Board of Trustees disbanded the team in
order to comply with
Title IX regulations.
The women's team retained its varsity status. Its coach is Kathie
Klages, who has had 16 winning seasons in a row. In 2008, the team
ranked 17th in the nation in the final season standings, the
highest placement in program history.
Gene Orlando is the coach of the men's tennis team. In his 17 years
as MSU head coach, Orlando has taken the Spartan men to four NCAA
Championship singles qualifiers. Coaching the women's team is Erica
Perkins, a second-year head coach who, in her first year, led the
Spartan women to a 12–11 record (2–8,
Big
Ten.)
See also
References
- " Tony Banks". NFLPlayers.com. Accessed April
28, 2007.
- [1]
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