Le Moyne Dolphins
The Le Moyne Dolphins are the athletic teams that represent Le Moyne College, located in DeWitt, New York, in NCAA Division I intercollegiate sporting competitions. The Dolphins compete as members of the NEC. Le Moyne had been a member of the NCAA Division II Northeast-10 Conference since 1996. Following the 2022–23 academic year, Le Moyne began the transition to NCAA Division I as a new member of the NEC.
Name origin
As early as the second century, Christians associated the dolphin with love and tenderness. A dolphin appears on the seal of the Bishop of Syracuse, just as it was on the seal of the ancient See of Siracusa. Le Moyne named its teams the Dolphins to encourage students to look to the future, because the dolphin is a sign of comfort and union and fraternal charity. The dolphin is a constant reminder that Le Moyne is steeped in centuries-old tradition and philosophy.Conference affiliation history
The Dolphins' primary conference affiliations, i.e. the conferences in which the men's basketball team competed, are shown in the table below.Varsity teams
List of teams
Men's basketball
In 1960, the men's basketball team won the Middle Eastern College Athletic Association Tournament, which was hosted by Saint Peter's College at the Jersey City Armory. Consolation games other than the third-place game were played at the Saint Peter's gym. In the tournament, Le Moyne defeated Saint Peter's, Iona and Long Island to win.The Le Moyne men's basketball team gained national attention when it defeated Division I powerhouse [2009–10 2009–10 Syracuse Orange men's basketball team|Syracuse Orange men's basketball team|Syracuse] 82–79 in a November 2009 exhibition game.
Women's basketball
Le Moyne's women's basketball team nearly pulled a shocker before falling to Syracuse 73–70 in an exhibition game at the JMA Wireless Dome on November 3, 2022.Baseball
After much success in Division II, Le Moyne's baseball team reclassified to Division I in the fall of 1987. The Dolphins rallied in the ninth inning to win their first game as a Division I team, 8–5, at Binghamton on September 10, 1987. Pete Stoyan's single in the final frame drove in the winning run. The Dolphins dropped the second game of the season-opening doubleheader, 4–3.Lacrosse
Le Moyne has long been a lacrosse power at the Division II level, earning seven men's and women's national championships in the sport. The Dolphins' men's lacrosse team captured its sixth national crown in 2021, under the leadership of head coach Dan Sheehan. Le Moyne registered its lone women's lacrosse national title in 2018.Athletic facilities
The Thomas J. Niland Athletic Complex houses Le Moyne College's athletic teams, visiting competitors, and coaches. Student-athletes use outdoor facilities including the Dick Rockwell Field for baseball, tennis courts, a softball complex and other fields including Ted Grant Field, completed in 2010, an athletic turf complex for lacrosse and soccer. The Niland Complex includes the Henninger Athletic Center, where basketball games and other events take place on Ted Grant Court.The complex also includes Dick Rockwell Field, Le Moyne's baseball field named for the school's former baseball coach and athletic director. The field was named after Rockwell on September 26, 1998, shortly after he was named chairman of the NCAA Division I baseball committee.
The campus also has trails behind the school that are used by the cross country team for their home meets and other teams to train on.
First plan to move to Division I
On September 15, 1997, Le Moyne announced it would begin the process of reclassification to Division I by applying for membership in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Tom O'Neil, the college's treasurer and vice president of finance, estimated the move to the MAAC would cost approximately $800,000 over the following three years. In October, the board of trustees approved the decision to apply for membership in the MAAC and transition to Division I athletics. However, the MAAC added new members Marist and Rider in 1997, and did not have amy plans for further expansion at that time. In early 2000, Le Moyne athletic director Dick Rockwell said the school would not transition to Division I as an [NCAA Division I NCAA Division I independent schools|independent schools|independent] and would remain in Division II, until a Division I home conference was found.In February 2003, Le Moyne announced that its plan to move to Division I had been abandoned. Despite the travel burdens, Dick Rockwell noted that the Northeast-10 Conference was extremely competitive and the top rated academic conference in Division II. The majority of its schools had mission statements similar to that of Le Moyne. Vice-president of student development Shawn L. Ward noted that new NCAA rules requiring a transitional period before full Division I membership could be attained coupled with the MAAC's lack of interest in expansion made it unlikely Le Moyne would leave Division II. MAAC commissioner Richard J. Ensor confirmed that the league had not recently discussed expansion and that there would be no interest in adding a new member that was not already a Division I institution. A transition to Division I as an independent would have been an arduous journey for Le Moyne, and there would have been no guarantee of MAAC membership at the end of that road. Rockwell estimated the annual cost increase to be competitive in Division I to be $2.5 million compared with the athletic department's then current Division II budget. In addition, Ward noted some of Le Moyne's facilities would need to be upgraded in order to meet Division I standards.
Athletic directors
Tommy Niland, namesake of the school's athletic complex, was Le Moyne's first athletics director and is the most significant figure in the college's athletics history. He was the first head coach of the freshman basketball team starting in the 1947–48 season, Le Moyne's initial academic year during which all students at the school were freshmen. Niland also coached Le Moyne's varsity basketball team from its inaugural season in 1948–49 until 1973, winning 326 games and going to seven NCAA College Division tournaments. He was also Le Moyne's first varsity baseball coach. After his varsity basketball coaching career ended, Niland remained in his position as Le Moyne's athletics director until his retirement in 1990. Niland also served on various NCAA regional and national committees, including the infractions committee that imposed the death penalty on Southern Methodist University's football program in 1987. Niland's membership on the committee was criticized by the Dallas media, one member of which wrote, "My only suggestion to the NCAA is only people from big-time programs should sit in judgement of big-time cheaters. What could the Le Moyne AD possibly know about downtown Dallas bag men and the going price for high school running backs in Texas?"Dick Rockwell, a graduate of Ithaca College, won 757 baseball games on the Heights between 1968 and 1996 at the Division I and II levels, going to the Division II national tournament 12 of their last 13 seasons in the division, and becoming a power in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in Division I. Rockwell also served as Le Moyne athletic director from 1990 to 2007.
On December 2, 2006, Le Moyne announced that Matt Bassett would become the school's third athletic director on July 1, 2007, following the retirement of Dick Rockwell. Bassett had most recently been senior associate director of athletics at Binghamton. Bassett was 47 years old at the time of his hiring and had also previously worked as a graduate assistant for Syracuse Orange men's basketball and as a basketball coach or administrator at Quinnipiac and Green Mountain. Binghamton and Quinnipiac had transitioned to Division I while Bassett was there, and Bassett played a role in fundraising for Binghamton's new basketball arena.
Following a long career in senior administration at the West Point, Bob Beretta was named director of athletics on January 7, 2021. He is only the fourth director of athletics in the college's history. Beretta led Le Moyne through initiation of the process of reclassifying from Division II to Division I. On June 4, 2024, Beretta resigned to become the athletics director at his alma mater, St. Bonaventure. Beretta's resignation was effective June 21, and the college planned to name an interim director, as the search for a permanent replacement was conducted.
Mike Lindberg, a Le Moyne alumnus from the class of 1979, became the Dolphins' interim athletic director on June 20, 2024. Lindberg previously served as the athletic director at Wells College in Aurora, New York from 2014 to 2023. During his tenure, Wells installed a state of the art multi-purpose turf field. Along with the improvement in facilities, Lindberg also saw the Express win a few North Eastern Athletic Conference titles. Previously, he was the associate director of intercollegiate athletics at Ithaca College from 1998 to 2013, where he was a part of various conference championship and NCAA Division III national championship teams.
Phil Brown became Le Moyne's new assistant vice president of athletics on January 1, 2025. Brown had overseen facilities and event management, capital projects and equipment staff at Vanderbilt from 2015 to 2024. Prior to his time at Vanderbilt, Brown was an assistant athletic director at Texas A&M–Kingsville. Brown has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Houston and a master's in business administration from Texas A&M–Commerce. He also has a master's degree in sports management from Georgia Southern and is a graduate of the Sport Management Institute Executive Programs conducted at Michigan and Texas.
Athletic registration rate
More than 75 percent of students are estimated to participate in some form of athletics at Le Moyne. Le Moyne student-athletes have combined to post term cumulative grade-point averages of at least 3.0 in 42 consecutive semesters dating back to 2003. Dolphin student-athletes routinely combine for term GPAs of at least 3.3 in addition to completing more than 2,500 hours of community service each year as part of The Le Moyne Way program.Club and intramural sports
The Thomas J. Niland Athletic Complex incorporates a facility with a competition-size swimming pool, fitness center and weight room, a three-court size multi-purpose gym area, an elevated jogging track, and four racquetball courts. It is designed primarily for intramural, recreational use, and personal fitness activities. Students can also use fitness centers which are located in several of the residence halls.The college participates in thirteen sports on the club level: men's ice hockey, men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, women's field hockey, women's basketball, men's rugby, women's rugby, equestrian, fencing, rowing, ultimate frisbee, sailing, and Tae Kwon Do, in addition to cheerleading, with both men and women on the squad. All club teams are given qualified coaches, practice facilities and uniforms.
The college conducts an extensive intramural program with sports and competitors that vary each year. The program usually includes: basketball ; flag football ; indoor soccer ; walleyball ; racquetball tournaments ; volleyball ; softball ; and inner tube water polo.