By John McCarty
When the Congregation of Holy Cross took over the school in 1902, it was a small, all-boys school called Columbia University and there were no sports at all.
Because Columbia was Notre Dame's sister school, it was important to the administration that its students not be seen as a bunch of jocks. Initially, the Columbia administration saw sports as a detriment to student life and academics. The students felt otherwise and many sports programs began the following school year.
Football and basketball quickly rose to prominence as the favorite sports on campus with baseball not far behind. The dominant sport was football and the Columbia squad attracted many famous coaches like former Notre Dame stars Edward Madigan and Maurice Smith.
As the school grew, so did the athletes, and by the early 1930's the football, basketball and baseball teams were regularly posting winning seasons.
In 1928, the men's basketball team lost to Gonzaga by only one point in one of the first basketball games played in the brand new Howard Hall.
"I can't believe Howard used to be our home court," sophomore Mike Pacholec said. "I couldn't imagine the Pilots playing anyone in there now."
In 1935, Columbia University finally became the University of Portland and student athletes proudly displayed their purple and white uniforms. Football remained the most popular sport on campus, but there was also strong intramural competition in other sports like bowling and golf.
Christie Hall had a bowling alley for students to compete the grounds of Shipstad used to be a five-hole practice golf course.
The 1930's were a time of development for Pilot athletics. The football team nearly reached the status of a big-time football power before World War II brought athletics to a screeching halt. Track and field was also developing into a respectable program before the war.
World War II marked a turning point in Pilot athletics; no sporting events were held between 1943 and 1945. Following the war, attempts were made to revive the football program but the University eventually had to drop the sport entirely due to financial reasons.
"It is sufficient to say that extraordinary expenses involved in the development and expansion program of the University have left us lacking in funds to finance first-class football. The administration feels that available resources could be used to better advantage in developing all departments of the University." The Rev. Theodore J. Mehling, C.S.C. said.
Distraught by the elimination of football, some players buried a football on campus, which has not been found to this day.
"A lot of people think it would be cool if UP had a football team," Pacholec said. "But at the same time I think not having one gives people a chance to really appreciate other sports."
In the void left by football, basketball rose up as the new favorite sport on campus. The 1950-51 season saw the Pilots achieve a 23-6 record, the largest winning season ever achieved in Pilot basketball.
With the first official sized track built on 1952, the UP track program once again became a powerful contender in the Northwest and cross country rose along with it.
Student enthusiasm for intercollegiate sports declined very rapidly during the 1960's while participation in intramural sports rose sharply. Several times during the late 60s, some games of intramural football and field hockey even achieved a higher student attendance than intercollegiate contests.
Interest in soccer began to grow during the 1960's with the influx of international students. The track program once again gained recognition with the completion of one of the first experimental rubberized tracks in the country.
During the 70s, the basketball team once again saw success and increased support. Several Civil War games against Portland State University garnered interest in what was essentially a city championship, and the basketball team was finally admitted to the West Coast Athletic Conference in the 1976-77 season.
The mid-seventies also saw increased demand for a soccer program largely due to the performance of the Portland Timbers in the North American Soccer League. Thus, a men's club team was formed.
The 1970's marked the beginning of women's sports at UP with the addition of women's basketball, volleyball, softball and soccer. Though both men's and women's soccer struggled in the early eighties, winning seasons came in the latter half of the decade with the arrival of Head Coach Clive Charles.
After bringing the men's soccer team to the NCAA final four in 1988, Charles also took over the head coaching duties of the women's team and UP began to be recognized as a formidable force on the pitch.
Now the University of Portland is well-known as a soccer titan, and gone are the days where the football team owned the pitch.
UP athletics continues to evolve, and its future has yet to be written.
