Kent State Golden Flashes


The Kent State Golden Flashes are the athletic teams that represent Kent State University. The university fields 19 varsity athletic teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the Division I level with football competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Kent State is a full member of the Mid-American Conference and has been part of the MAC East division since it was created in 1998. Official school colors are Kent State Blue and Kent State Gold.
Athletic events were held during the first semester at Kent State in late 1913, with several intramural teams for female students and a limited number of opportunities for male students. Early men's athletic events, in basketball and baseball, were played against local high school, church, and company teams. The first intercollegiate athletic event, a men's basketball game, was held in January 1915 and the baseball team held their first intercollegiate game later that year. A dedicated athletic field was built around 1920 and the school's first gymnasium opened in 1925. Football also debuted as a sport in 1920, followed by wrestling, men's tennis, men's gymnastics, and men's swimming. Joe Kotys, fresh off an appearance in the 1948 Summer Olympics, was dominant for the Golden Flashes in NCAA competition during this period accruing six individual men's gymnastics championships between 1949 and 1951. From 1932 to 1951, Kent State competed as a member of the Ohio Athletic Conference before joining the Mid-American Conference in 1951. The school's first permanent football stadium and a new basketball gym opened in 1950.
Although women's intramural athletics had been part of the university since it was first established, the first women's intercollegiate athletic team was not established until 1964 when the women's gymnastics team, the first women's collegiate gymnastics team in the U.S., began intercollegiate competition after being founded in 1959. Additional women's sports, including swimming, field hockey, basketball, and volleyball, were added as varsity sports in the mid-1970s following the passage and implementation of Title IX. Budget constraints and other factors led to the university dropping swimming, tennis, ice hockey, and men's soccer during the 1980s and 1990s, with ice hockey becoming a club-level sport in the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division I as part of College Hockey Mid-America. The most recent changes occurred in the late 1990s when women's golf and women's soccer were added as varsity sports, followed by the addition of women's lacrosse, which began play in 2019.
Several Kent State athletic teams have enjoyed success in the Mid-American Conference and at the national level over the years and the university has produced individual national champions in both wrestling and track and field. Both the men's and women's golf teams have been the most successful in MAC play having won the most conference titles in MAC history through 2017. The men's golf team has also finished as high as 5th nationally in 2012 to go with 6th and 9th-place finishes, while the women's golf team also claimed a 5th place finish in 2017. Additionally, the men's basketball team made a notable run to the Elite Eight in 2002, the baseball team advanced to the College World Series in 2012, and the softball team qualified for the Women's College World Series in 1990. Kent State also has had high national finishes from the men's indoor and outdoor track and field teams, women's gymnastics, and wrestling. A number of Golden Flashes alumni have gone on to play and coach in both college and major professional sports, such as Jack Lambert, Antonio Gates, Nick Saban, Lou Holtz, Thurmon Munson, and Emmanuel Burriss.

History

Athletics at Kent State began shortly after the school was first organized in 1910 and the first classes held in 1912. The school's first sporting event was a men's basketball game in 1913 against Kent High School and the following spring the baseball team was organized, known as the "Normal Nine". The football team followed in 1920 and held their first game on October 30, a 6–0 loss to Ashland College. Around this same time, the teams became known as the "Silver Foxes" because then-president John Edward McGilvrey raised silver foxes on his farm east of campus. After McGilvrey's controversial firing in 1926, the new administration held a contest to choose a different team name and "Golden Flashes" was chosen, though no significance was included in the name. The first use of "Golden Flashes" occurred in 1927 after it was approved by the student body and faculty athletic committee. The school colors are officially defined as "Kent State blue" and "Kent State gold", which are shades of Navy blue and gold. The original school colors, as chosen by the school's first president John Edward McGilvrey, were orange and blue, believed to have been inspired by the school colors for the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where McGilvrey had been a professor. Gold was also used with blue during the 1920s. A committee formally set the colors as royal blue and gold in 1925. Kent State was a member of the Ohio Athletic Conference from 1932 to 1951 and joined the Mid-American Conference in 1951.

National placements

Although no Kent State team has won a national title in any sport, several Golden Flashes teams have placed highly in NCAA national tournaments. The program has also produced individual national champions in men's and women's track and field, men's gymnastics, and wrestling. Notable national team finishes include:
  • Men's basketball: tie-5th
  • Men's golf: 9th ; 6th ; tie-5th
  • Men's indoor track and field: 5th, 2nd
  • Men's outdoor track and field: 6th
  • Baseball: tie-5th
  • Gymnastics:12th 1st MAC Team to ever qualify for the National Championships
  • Softball: 7th
  • Wrestling: 5th
  • Co-ed cheerleading: 8th ; 9th

    Sports sponsored

Kent State sponsors 19 athletic teams at the NCAA Division I level, with eight for men and 11 for women. All current teams compete in the Mid-American Conference. The academic year is divided into three seasons, with the fall sports season typically lasting from August into December, the winter sports season going from late November into March, and the spring sports season beginning in early March and ending in June.
Fall sports are football, women's field hockey, women's soccer, women's volleyball, men's and women's golf, and men's and women's cross country. During the winter sports season, Kent State has men's and women's basketball, women's gymnastics, wrestling, and men's and women's indoor track and field. The spring sports season features men's and women's golf, baseball, women's lacrosse, softball, and men's and women's outdoor track & field.
Both men's and women's golf compete in tournaments around the country in both the fall and spring seasons, with MAC and NCAA championship play held in the spring season.
In December 2025, Kent State announced that women's wrestling, which graduated from the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program to full championship status in 2025–26, would be added in 2027–28.

Baseball

The baseball team is Kent State's second oldest sport, though it is the school's oldest intercollegiate team. Formed in 1914, they were known originally as the "Normal Nine" as the school was originally known as Kent State Normal School. The team has enjoyed significant success both in the Mid-American Conference and on the national level and has sent several players to the major leagues over the years. The team's home field is Schoonover Stadium, which opened in 2005 on the site of the team's previous home, Gene Michael Field. The coach is Jeff Duncan, who was hired as coach after the 2013 season. Through the 2023 season, the team has 12 MAC East titles, 16 MAC regular-season titles, 12 MAC tournament titles, and 13 NCAA tournament appearances. In 2012, the team made its first appearances in both the Super Regional round of the NCAA baseball tournament and the College World Series.
  • MAC East division titles: 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017
  • MAC overall titles: 1964, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2023
  • MAC tournament titles: 1992, 1993, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2018
  • NCAA tournament appearances: 1964, 1992, 1993, 1994, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014
  • College World Series appearances: 2012

    Men's basketball

The men's basketball team, which began play in 1913 and intercollegiate competition in 1914, plays in the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center and is Kent State's oldest sport and second-oldest intercollegiate team. After decades of near anonymity, since 1998 the team has been one of the most consistent in the Mid-American Conference with a league record ten straight twenty-win seasons from the 1998–99 season through the 2007–08 season. Kent State was one of only eight NCAA Division I men's basketball programs in the United States to have ten consecutive seasons with twenty or more wins. Kent State also holds the MAC record for consecutive seasons with double-digit conference wins, also for ten consecutive seasons, and in 2002 finished 17–1 in conference play, setting a MAC record for conference wins in a season. The Flashes amassed thirty victories in the 2001–02 season which culminated in a berth in the NCAA Elite Eight. In the tournament they defeated seventh-seeded Oklahoma State, second-seeded Alabama, and third-seeded Pitt. One of the stars on this team, power forward Antonio Gates, went on to become a Hall of Famer in a different sport, football, as a tight end with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers. Kent State has made 14 MAC tournament title game appearances and has won seven, along with six regular-season MAC titles and nine MAC East titles.
  • MAC East division titles: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015
  • MAC overall titles: 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015
  • MAC Tournament titles: 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2017, 2023
  • NCAA tournament appearances: 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2017, 2023
  • NIT appearances: 1985, 1989, 1990, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2025
  • Other postseason appearances: 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2022