Lewis & Clark Football Team, 1902
The Albany College football team was founded in 1894. Initially teams had no coaches and no clear sense of the rules of the game. The Eugene Guard wrote of an early game:
Much interest is anticipated in the football game which is to take place on the university campus next Saturday. The Albany football team will try their ability with the team recently organized at the University of Oregon[...]some of the members of the [U. of O.] team were rather averse to a contest so soon, for scarcely one knew anything of practical football ten days ago.
Gymnasium Fire, September 11, 1966
Students watched as fire destroyed a major portion of the nineteen-year-old gymnasium, leaving only a few offices and classrooms. Damages were estimated at $250,000, with the cost of lost sports equipment alone at $50,000. Plans were immediately drawn for an improved sports pavilion and indoor swimming pool.
“The Orange and the Black”
Sports have always been an important component of student life at Lewis & Clark. As early as 1886, the Albany College Athletic Association organized clubs and events for popular sports such as cycling, track, and tennis. In 1901 Willamette Valley colleges of comparable size—Pacific, McMinnville, Monmouth, and Albany—organized the College Athletic League of Oregon. In the first year of the league Albany won championships in track & field and football.
World War I was hard on college athletics. Seventy-three percent of the male students enlisted shortly after the US joined the war in the spring of 1917. After a three-year hiatus from sports, Albany returned strong in 1919 as the “Pirates” to winning seasons in basketball, baseball, and tennis. The “Pirates” remained Albany’s mascot until the campus closed in 1938.
With the move to the Fir Acres estate in 1942, and the change of the mascot from “Pirates” to “Pioneers” in 1946, Lewis & Clark athletics flourished. The 1949 men’s basketball team became the first Lewis & Clark team to win a Northwest Conference title, and the 1950 football team won the Pear Bowl at the end of an undefeated season. The 1970s was the Pioneers’ most successful decade to date as they won 40 conference championships, including 10 consecutive titles for women’s tennis.
In 1998 Lewis & Clark moved from NAIA to NCAA Division III; in the same year the men’s basketball team made it to the Elite Eight of the championship tournament. By 2011, women’s cross country won its second consecutive conference championship. In the same year the women’s basketball team earned its first ever berth in a NCAA Tournament.