Archery The women's archery team became a varsity sport at Barnard in 1978 and was absorbed into the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium when Columbia College became co-educational in 1983. Archers compete in both the recurve (Olympic) and compound divisions. Until 2003, the team consisted exclusively of walk-ons with little prior experience; as of 2020, most archers are recruited similar to other varsity sports. Columbia also fields a club-level archery team for male archers and female students interested in learning the sport. Columbia won outdoor national championships in 2005 (recurve), 2008 (recurve), 2011 (recurve), 2013 (recurve), 2015 (recurve and compound), 2017 (recurve and compound) and 2018 (compound). In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, five Lions archers were named to the Collegiate Archery All-American team.
American football The Lions compete in the
Ivy League, which is part of the NCAA
Football Championship Subdivision. Columbia was one of the first schools to take up the game; Columbia's 1870 contest with Princeton was the first football game played between future Ivy League Schools and their contest against
Rutgers that same year was the fourth intercollegiate football game ever played. During the first half of the 20th century the Columbia Lions were a national power and at times the best football program in the nation. The 1875 squad was named co-national champion over 50 years later by historian
Parke Davis, while the 1915 squad went undefeated and untied. The 1933 edition of the Lions won an unofficial national championship by upsetting the top-ranked
Stanford Indians 7–0 in the
Rose Bowl on
New Year's Day 1934.
Lou Little, who coached the team from 1930 to 1956, is in the
College Football Hall of Fame. Pro and College Football Hall of Fame inductee, Sid Luckman, an
NFL MVP and 4-Time NFL Champion played his entire college football career at Columbia. Lou Gehrig additionally played for the Columbia Lions during this period. Between 1983 and 1988, a period of financial instability for New York City and Columbia University, the Lions lost 44 games in a row. The streak was broken with a 16–13 victory over archrival
Princeton. That was the Lions' first victory at
Wien Stadium (which was already four years old, having been opened during the streak).
Pro Football Hall of Famer
Sid Luckman played his college ball at Columbia, graduating in 1938. Luckman is also in the
College Football Hall of Fame. Other Lions to have success in the NFL include offensive lineman
George Starke, the
Washington Redskins' "
Head Hog," during the 1970s and 1980s, quarterback
John Witkowski in the 1980s, and defensive lineman
Marcellus Wiley in the 1990s. Perhaps the most famous personality associated with Lions football was a running back who had limited success on the field: the writer
Jack Kerouac left school and went on the road after one injury-marred season at Columbia. Another Lions back who became legendary for his accomplishments off the gridiron was baseball great
Lou Gehrig, who was a two-sport star at Columbia.
Norries Wilson is the first
African-American head coach in the history of Ivy League football. He served as the Lions' head coach from 2005 to 2011. Former
Penn Quakers football coach
Al Bagnoli became Columbia's head coach on February 23, 2015. Columbia and
Cornell play for the Empire Cup, emblematic for Ivy League supremacy in New York State. Since 2018, they have played each other in their season finale.
Bowl games Baseball Lou Gehrig played college baseball at Columbia (he joined the
New York Yankees in 1923, after his sophomore season) as well as
Hall of Fame inductee
Eddie Collins. In 1939 the first live
televised sporting event in the United States, was a Columbia versus
Princeton baseball game, broadcast from
Baker Field in New York City. Other Columbia Lions who have gone on to play in
Major League Baseball include
Gene Larkin and
Fernando Perez. The team plays at
Hal Robertson Field at Phillip Satow Stadium, located at the northern tip of
Manhattan.
Men's basketball Columbia was one of the first schools to take up basketball. The Lions' rivalry with the
Yale Bulldogs is the longest continuous rivalry in NCAA college basketball (tied with the Yale-Princeton rivalry): the two teams have played each other for 108 seasons in a row, going back to the 1901–1902 season. The Lions were retroactively recognized as the pre-
NCAA Tournament 1904 and 1905 national champions by the
Premo-Porretta Power Poll, and as the 1904, 1905 and 1910 national champions by the
Helms Athletic Foundation. During the years just before the Ivy League formally became a sports conference, the Lions made it to "March Madness" on two occasions. In 1948, they were one of eight teams in the tournament, losing in the East regional semifinal to the eventual champion
Kentucky. The 1951 team went undefeated in the regular season and were one of the 16 teams invited to the championship. The Lions lost 79–71 to eventual semi-finalist
Illinois for a final record of 21–1 (best record in the nation that year with win–loss percentage of .956). The 1951 team is, however, sadly best known for the tragic story of its brilliant but troubled star forward
Jack Molinas, who eventually ended up in prison for crimes related his longtime involvement with gambling and who was murdered in 1975 in what appeared to be an organized crime-related assassination. Molinas still holds several school scoring records. In 1957
Chet Forte was a consensus All-American and UPI player of the year for the
NCAA University Division (which was replaced in 1973 by
NCAA Division I); he averaged 28.9 points (fifth in the nation). He is even more famous for his later work as a producer for ABC Sports, especially on the program
Monday Night Football. Dieter Ficken was named
NSCAA Coach of the Year in 1983 after the Lions' 1–0 double-overtime finals loss to seven-time champion
Indiana University. • Top-25 national finishes from 2000 through 2005 • Co-ed NCAA runners-up: 1990, 1991, and 2025 • Men's NCAA runners-up: 1956, 1957, 1958, 1970, 1986, and 2026 • Ivy League championships (since 1975): 1999, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2014
Men's ice hockey Columbia University had a team early on in the American intercollegiate
ice hockey circuit. Columbia had a team organized already during the 1896–97 season and during the 1897–98 campaign the university appeared in the
Intercollegiate Hockey Association (IHA) alongside teams from
Yale,
Brown, and
University of Pennsylvania, and the school was continuously represented in organized ice hockey league games against other Ivy League institutions (Yale, Brown,
Harvard,
Princeton,
Dartmouth and
Cornell) up until the mid-1910s. As of 2020, Columbia does not have a varsity ice hockey team. Columbia does participate at the club level, competing in the American Collegiate Hockey Association.
Men's rowing , winners of the
Visitors' Challenge Cup in 1878 Columbia's first intercollegiate regatta dates back to 1873, when it raced a six-oared shell in Springfield, Massachusetts. The next year, Columbia won the intercollegiate title at Saratoga. The lightweights also captured the
Jope Cup team award for the first time in the program's history. • In 2016, the men's varsity lightweight eight won gold medals at the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships. The men's varsity lightweight 4+ earned silver medals, enabling Columbia to win the IRA Lightweight Team Trophy. The varsity lightweights eight went on to reach the quarterfinals of the
Temple Challenge Cup at the
Henley Royal Regatta. • In 2015, both the men's varsity lightweight eight and the varsity lightweight four took the silver at the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships and reached the semifinals in the
Temple Challenge Cup at the
Henley Royal Regatta in
Henley-on-Thames, UK. • In 2014, the men's varsity lightweights took the bronze at the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships. • In 2008, the men's heavyweight crew had a regular season record of 10–1 and finished sixth in the nation at the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship being the only Ivy League school in the Grand Final. They then went on to be the only American crew competing for
The Ladies' Challenge Plate at the Henley Royal Regatta. • The 2003 varsity lightweights went 11–2, gained silver medals after finishing second in both the
Eastern Sprints and the IRA National Lightweight Championship, and became the first Columbia crew ever to capture all four cup races in a single season. • In 2000, the varsity lightweights won the
Eastern Sprints, the first time a Columbia varsity has captured the prestigious event, and earned a bronze medal at the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship. The same year, it won England's
Marlow Regatta and took its second trip to Henley in three years, again reaching the quarterfinals. • In 1998 the varsity lightweights won silver medals at the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship, won England's
Reading Town Regatta and reached the quarterfinals of the
Temple Challenge Cup at the
Henley Royal Regatta. • In 1995, the freshman lightweights earned Columbia's first Eastern Sprints medal in 24 years, and were named the EARC Outstanding Lightweight Boat of the Year. The next year, the varsity lightweights earned national acclaim when they went 10–1 and won the Augusta Regatta, the Geiger Cup and the Subin Cup, and were third in the IRA Regatta—the first Lions varsity crew to medal at the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships in 25 years. • In 1964, the freshman lightweight crew had a perfect season, winning all five of its regular season races, and won a gold medal at Eastern Sprints by two-tenths of a second. • In both 1932 and 1928, the varsity lightweights won the Joseph Wright Challenge Cup at the American Rowing Association Regatta—also known as the American Henley Regatta, and generally regarded as the lightweight national championships—on the
Schuylkill River. The 1928 crew won over Penn by five boat-lengths. In 1929 the varsity lightweight eight was undefeated in match racing, and captured 2nd place at the American Henley before traveling to England where they won the
Marlow Regatta and made it to the semifinals of the
Thames Challenge Cup at the
Henley Royal Regatta. It was Columbia's first return to Henley since their 1878 victory, and it marked the first-ever appearance of a lightweight crew at Henley. They were the first lightweight crew to be awarded a Varsity "Major C" for creating a favorable impression abroad and adding rowing honors to Columbia and to the sport in the United States. • Columbia varsity 8 won the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship in 1914, 1927, and 1929. • In 1895, with Cornell and Penn, the Lions competed in the first-ever race for the college championship and finished first. This would come to be known as the
Poughkeepsie Regatta, a competition to award the national intercollegiate rowing crown. Presently, this race is known as the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta. The Varsity 8s also won the regatta in 1914, 1927 and 1929 • In 1879 the varsity 4 won the Rowing Association of American Colleges Regatta on Lake George. • In 1874 the varsity 6 won the Rowing Association of American Colleges Regatta on Lake Saratoga. • Head Coach: Jacques Swanepoel • Ivy League runner-up: 2015, 2016, 2017 • Ivy League champion: 2018 • Finished 4th in the country in 2015 and 2017, 3rd in 2018 •
Osama Khalifa, first-ever Columbia squash player to be crowned national individual champion, 2017. Also named William V. Campbell Performer of the Year (male).
Women's squash • Coaches: Jacques Swanepoel, Joanne Schickerling, Chris Sachvie
Men's swimming and diving • Head Coach: Jim Bolster • 8 individual NCAA Division I championships
Historical note: 1976 – First and only female varsity athlete at Columbia (before Columbia College began admitting women):
Annemarie McCoy competed against the Lions' opponents. Thanks to
Title IX, all Columbia University students (including those women from The School of Engineering and Applied Science) were eligible for Columbia athletic programs—and so McCoy was able to stay afloat with her teammates.
Women's swimming and diving • Head coach Diana Caskey and assistant coach Demerae Christianson • 2013–2014 Ivy League Dual Meet Championship Team • 4 individual NCAA Division I championships •
Cristina Teuscher, 1999–2000
Honda-Broderick Cup winner (NCAA Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year)
Men's tennis • Ivy League Champions 2009 • Ivy League Champions 2007 • NCAA Division I tournament appearances, 1984, 1987, 1998, 2000 • Robert LeRoy, two-time ILTA singles champion, 1904 and 1906 The
sprinting champion's most incredible achievement was at the 1938
Millrose Games, in front of more than 17,000 fans at
Madison Square Garden. His winning time in the
60-yard dash was 5.9 seconds, breaking the world record of 6.2 seconds for the third time in the same day. His final time of 5.9 seconds was rounded up to 6.0 seconds, because the referees claimed it must have been a timing error, arguing that no human being could ever break 6 seconds in the 60-yard dash. • In 2007, Columbia won the Championship of America 4 × 800 m race at the prestigious Penn Relays. The team of Michael Mark, Jonah Rathbun,
Erison Hurtault and Liam Boylan-Pett ran 7:22.64, outkicking the anchor legs of national powerhouses Michigan, Villanova and Oral Roberts. The team has finished no lower than fifth in the past three years. • In March 2010,
Kyle Merber became the first Columbia athlete to break four minutes in the mile, running 3:58.52 at the Columbia Last Chance Meet at the 168th St. Armory. The mark is also an Ivy League indoor record.
Wrestling Dating back to 1903,
wrestling has a long history at Columbia. In 2024,
Donny Pritzlaff became the 10th head coach in program history, succeeding Zach Tanelli, who was head coach from 2016 to 2024. The Lions wrestling team currently competes in the
Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) Conference. Columbia has had 25 EIWA Conference Champions and seven NCAA All-Americans, most recently Lennox Wolak, who placed 6th in 2024 at the NCAA Wrestling Championships. The Blue Gym (or University Gym) is home to the Columbia Lions wrestling team, located within the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on campus.
Other • Men's gymnastics team won the intercollegiate championship meet in 1900. • The rifle team won the indoor national title in 1908 and an outdoor national title in 1924. == The Lions ==