All Sports, All the Time

Arc of the Diver
During her senior year, Jennifer Betz ENG’11 appeared in the 2011 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.

Cardsharps
In the first intercollegiate athletic event to take place at Rutgers, the Rutgers baseball team lost to Princeton, 40–2, on May 2, 1866. But the team had, if nothing else, a sense of style, evident in these elegant cards, which carried player biographies in lieu of statistics. They were fine models to emulate for future Topps baseball trading cards.

On the Banks of the Old Raritan
On June 20, 1870, a regatta took place on the Raritan between Rutgers and Harvard. The  fellow colonial college, which won, had been invited by the Raritan Boat Club, unable itself to defeat Rutgers since 1864. That year, the Rutgers Boating Association (pictured here) was formed and introduced rowing at Rutgers and soon competed in the first organized athletic event at the college. Rutgers–New Brunswick would produce several Olympians and champions as well as host a women’s team.

Making the Pitch
Behind All-American pitcher Michelle Schlichtig-Hastings UCC’10, the Rutgers–Camden softball team (now coached by her) won the 2006 NCAA Division III National Championship. The Scarlet Raptors’ victory, coming three years after the women’s basketball team won the New Jersey Athletic Conference title and competed in the NCAA tournament, was the first national title for a Rutgers–Camden team and the first NCAA team title for Rutgers since 1949.

A Spike in Victories
During its 1975–76 inaugural season, the Rutgers–Newark men’s volleyball team went 43-3 and appeared in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics championship game. From 1977 to 1981, the Scarlet Raiders appeared in four NCAA Final Four championship games. In 1977, the team hosted the U.S. men’s national team in an exhibition at the newly opened Golden Dome Athletic Center.