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The Patriot League

By Matt Shetler

 

 

            The Patriot League is an eight member Division I college athletic conference that operates in the Northeast, United States.  The Patriot League sponsors twenty-three men’s and women’s Division I sports.  The league headquarters are located in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, and the Patriot League Commissioner has been Carolyn S. Femovich (as of 2008) since 1999.
  
            The Patriot League is considered Division I for all sports except football, in which its considered part of the Football Championship Subdivision (formally I-AA).  Only seven of the eight members participate in football.
  
            The Patriot League was founded in 1986 as the Colonial League (not to be confused with the Colonial Athletic Association), but changed its name in 1990 when it began sponsoring sports other than football.  Charter members of the league include:  Bucknell University, Colgate University,  College of the Holy Cross, Lafayette College and Lehigh University.  The U.S. Military Academy was added in 1990 as was the U.S. Naval Academy in 1991. 
  
            The league was founded on the principals of only admitting athletes who were academic representatives of their class.  All members of the league believe strongly in the concept of the “scholar-athlete”, with the full emphasis being on the word scholar.  When the latest NCAA Graduation Rate  Report of student-athletes was released, the Patriot League ranked first among all Division I conferences.
  
            Only recently did Patriot League schools begin offering athletic scholarships.  Basketball scholarships began with the freshman class of 1998 and scholarships for all other sports began in 2001, when American University joined the league (AU doesn’t play football).  The last scholarship holdout, Lafayette, began offering athletic scholarships with their 2006 freshman class.
  
            The Patriot League features some of the oldest athletic rivalries in the country.  The Lafayette-Lehigh match up is the nation’s most played and longest uninterrupted college football series.  There is also a long history between Army and Navy, especially in football, which has produced many intense games.
  
            The Patriot League receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and two Patriot League team have recorded wins during “March Madness”.  The Bucknell Bison  won NCAA games in 2005 over Kansas and 2006 over Arkansas.  The most famous Patriot League team was the 1986 Navy Midshipmen.  Led by future NBA Hall of Famer David Robinson, the Midshipmen reached the Elite 8.
  
            The 2003 Colgate Raiders advance to the Division I-AA football championship game before falling to the University of Delaware.  The Patriot Leagues has success in other sports as well, the biggest being men’s lacrosse, where the league is considered one of the best in the nation.
  

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