Brandeis Athletics: An Overview

Brandeis fields 17 Division III varsity athletic programs. The Judges compete in the University Athletic Association (UAA), comprising Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Emory University, New York University, the University of Chicago, the University of Rochester and Washington University (St. Louis). UAA teams are among the most successful athletic programs in the nation, giving Brandeis athletes a chance to prove themselves against the best Division III has to offer.

Over the years, Brandeis has won NCAA team championships in men's soccer (1976) and men's cross country (1983), as well as 24 individual titles. Over the last seven years, under the leadership of Director of Athletics Sheryl Sousa '90, Brandeis teams have earned 13 NCAA Division III Tournament berths and won eight Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association (ECAC) New England crowns. Eight different Judges teams have earned national rankings in her tenure, with both men's and women's basketball programs ascending to No. 2 in the nation during that time.

In 2010-11, the men's cross country team finished 16^th at the NCAA championships, while the fencing squad was 20^th and women's soccer reached the second round of the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. Brandeis won ECAC titles in men's soccer and men's basketball, while also earning runner-up honors in softball. Grayce Selig '11 graduated with four career All-America honors, including the runner-up in the mile run at the 2011 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships, while Paul Norton '11 of the men's cross country team and Marianne Specker '12 of softball team were named Capital One Academic All-Americans ™, as selected by the College Sports Information Director's Association.

Among Brandeis's top student-athlete alumni are Nelson Figueroa '98, the program's first major league baseball player, who spent 2011 in the Houston Astros organization, and fencer Tim Morehouse '00, the University's first Olympic qualifier in Athens in 2004 and first medalist, winning a team silver in the saber in Beijing in 2008. The Judges' have also boasted legendary coaches from Bud Collins of the tennis team to former Boston Celtics K.C. Jones, Bob Brannum and Chris Ford with the basketball team. The current coaches are no less significant for their contributions to the Judges, including 30-year veterans Mike Coven (men's soccer), Denise Dallamora (women's soccer), Bill Shipman (fencing) and Pete Varney (baseball).