Temple Owls


The Temple Owls are the athletic teams that represent Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The current athletic director is Arthur Johnson.
The owl has been the symbol and mascot for Temple University since its founding in the 1880s. Temple was the first school in the United States to adopt the owl as its symbol or mascot. The owl, a nocturnal hunter, was initially adopted as a symbol because Temple University began as a night school for young people of limited means. Russell Conwell, Temple's founder, encouraged these students with the remark: "The owl of the night makes the eagle of the day."

Affiliation

The Owls are primarily members of the American Athletic Conference. Since their football team participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. The football program was a member of the Big East Conference until its expulsion after the 2004 season due to a variety of program shortcomings. Temple played a limited MAC schedule in 2005 and 2006 before becoming an affiliated football-only member and playing a full 8-game league schedule in 2007. The school's men's basketball team is part of the Big Five, the traditional designation for the rivalries between the Owls and their Philadelphia rivals: Penn, Saint Joseph's, Villanova, and La Salle.
The landscape of Temple sports changed in the early 2010s, thanks to a major realignment of Division I conferences. Temple football returned to the Big East in 2012, and then became a full member of the renamed American Athletic Conference in July 2013, after being a full member of the A-10 since the early '80s. The Owls are an affiliate member of The Big East for Field Hockey and the East Atlantic Gymnastics League for gymnastics.
As of the 2023 conference realignment, Temple and Wichita State are the only two schools in the American to have never been members of Conference USA. Additionally, Temple is the only member of the AAC remaining from the northeast and the only member outside its geographical footprint after UConn's return to the Big East Conference and Cincinnati's departure to the Big 12 Conference.

Conference affiliations

NCAA

Temple University was among the first institutions in the United States to sponsor extracurricular athletic activities for its students. Both the football and basketball programs were inaugurated in 1894 under the direction of Coach Charles M. Williams.

Championships

NCAA team championships

Temple has won three team national championships.
  • Men's
  • *Gymnastics : 1949
  • Women's
  • *Lacrosse : 1984, 1988
  • see also:
  • *American Athletic Conference NCAA team championships
  • *List of NCAA schools with the most NCAA Division I championships

    Other national team championships

  • Men's
  • *Soccer : 1951, 1953
  • Women's
  • *AIAW Lacrosse : 1982

    Olympic competitors

• 1904 St. Louis Olympics: a Philadelphia-based team captured the first-ever gold medal in team competition for the United States.

• 1932 Los Angeles Olympics: Bill Herrmann, wins bronze medal for tumbling.

• 1936 Berlin Olympics: Chet Phillips was a member of the men's gymnastics team.

• 1948 London Olympics: Temple University gymnasts Marian Barone and Clara Schroth-Lomady help the United States win its first medal for women in team competition with the bronze. Schroth is also noted for holding two U.S. national gymnastics records – the most titles with 39 and the most consecutive championships with 11 straight on the balance beam between 1941–52.

• 1952 Helsinki Olympics: Bob Stout becomes the first gymnast ever to complete a back somersault with full twist when he landed the move during the floor exercises.

• 1984 Los Angeles Olympics: Temple men's assistant rowing coach, Mike Teti, named Olympic alternate and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated during the athletes parade in the Opening Ceremony.

• 1988 Seoul Korea: Men's rowing assistant Mike Teti was a member of the bronze winning U.S. Men's Eight rowing team.

• 1992 Barcelona Olympics: Mike Moore was the coxswain for the U.S. rowing team's Men's Eight. Temple men's gymnastics coach Fred Turoff is an assistant coach on the U.S. Olympic Team.

• 1996 Atlanta Olympics: Scott Brodie was a member of the Canadian Men's Eight that placed fourth.

• 2000 Sydney Olympics: Igor Francetic was a member of the bronze medal winning Croatian Eight rowing team; Long time Temple men's rowing coach, Dr. Gavin White, named U.S. Olympic Assistant Coach.

• 2004 Athens Olympics: Jason Read was a member of the U.S. Men's Eight that won gold and set a world record in rowing; Temple women's basketball coach, Dawn Staley, was the United States team captain and flag bearer and a member of the women's basketball team that won gold; Miles Avery is an assistant coach on the Olympic Team and personal coach of All-Around Champion Paul Hamm. Juan Ignacio Sanchez Temple's graduate was a member of the Argentina's Basketball national team that won the gold medal.

• 2008 Beijing: Marcus McElhenney coxed the U.S. Men's Eight to a bronze medal in rowing and Jason Read was also a member of the team and contributed to the Wall Street Journal's Beijing coverage of the Games.

Teams

Temple sponsors 18 varsity teams. Seven of these are men's sports and eleven are women's sports.

Men's basketball

In 1938, the Owls, who finished with a 23–2 record, won the inaugural National Invitation Tournament by routing Colorado, 60–36, in the championship final. Because the NCAA tournament was not held until the following year, Temple's NIT championship earned the Owls national title recognition. The team was also retroactively named the national champion by the Helms Athletic Foundation and the Premo-Porretta Power Poll.
During the 1950s, the Temple basketball team made two NCAA Final Four appearances under Head Coach Harry Litwack. Litwack would be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame after concluding a 21-year coaching career that included 373 wins. Head Coach John Chaney, also a Hall of Famer, won a total of 724 career games and took Temple to the NCAA tournament 17 times. His 1987–88 Owls team entered the NCAA tournament ranked No. 1 in the country, and he has reached the Elite Eight on five occasions. He was consensus national coach of the year in 1988. Former NBA players Eddie Jones of the Miami Heat, Aaron McKie of the Los Angeles Lakers, Rick Brunson of the New York Knicks, and Mardy Collins, formerly of the Los Angeles Clippers, are also part of Temple's basketball heritage.
On March 13, 2006, Hall of Fame head coach John Chaney retired.
On April 10, 2006, University of Pennsylvania head coach and La Salle University alumnus Fran Dunphy was named Temple's new men's head basketball coach. Dunphy had coached the Quakers for 17 straight seasons prior to the move. Dunphy and his Owls won the Atlantic-10 tournament in 2008 beating St. Joseph's University. The Owls were rewarded with a 12 seed in the NCAA tournament and paired against 5th-seeded Michigan State, losing that game 72–61. In 2009, the Owls won their second consecutive Atlantic-10 tournament against Duquesne, for their conference leading 13th title.
After Dunphy's retirement in 2019, alumnus Aaron McKie was named the program's head coach. The move was well-received at the time due to his deep connection with Philadelphia basketball. McKie was 1993 A-10 Player of the Year with Temple, and won the 2001–02 NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award with the Philadelphia 76ers helping them reach the NBA Finals. McKie had been part of the Sixers' coaching staff prior to being named head coach of the Owls.
McKie's tenure saw many highs, but just as many lows. A tumultuous 2022–23 season, where the team went on record saying they believed they could qualify for the NCAA tournament, saw the Owls defeating #16 Villanova at home and #1 Houston on the road, but suffering home losses to Wagner College and University of Maryland-Eastern Shore. Ultimately, Temple couldn't live up to their own hype; suffering a 30-point defeat to Cincinnati in the AAC Tournament quarterfinals. The magnitude of the loss, coupled with the failure to reach the NCAA tournament in his five years and the exit of five of the team's top players via the transfer portal doomed McKie's tenure. McKie stepped down as head coach after the 22–23 season, though he remains with Temple as a Special Advisor to the Athletic Department.
Former Miami and Penn State assistant Adam Fisher was named McKie's successor on March 29, 2023. Fisher's first season saw the Owls win 16 games, tied for the most by a first-year head coach in program history. Temple's wins over Big 5 rivals Drexel on November 14 and La Salle on Nov. 29 put the Owls in the championship game of the inaugural Big 5 Classic, but they fell to St. Joe's. The Owls struggled in conference play with a 5–13 regular season record in the AAC. But Temple nearly stunned the college basketball world by making their way to the AAC Tournament finals, winning four games in four days; including a semifinal win over Florida Atlantic University, who reached the Final Four the previous season. The Owls' momentum ran out however, and they suffered a 16-point loss to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Entering the 2024–25 season, Temple men's basketball program ranked tied for sixth in NCAA All-Time wins with 1,993.

Football

The Owls football team participates in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision, but because the A-10 supported football only at the Football Championship Subdivision level, they maintained separate league affiliation for football. They were a member of the Big East Conference until their expulsion after the 2004 season due to a variety of program shortcomings; they played a limited Mid-American Conference schedule in 2005 and 2006 before becoming a completely affiliated football-only member and playing a full 8-game MAC league schedule in 2007. In December 2005, Al Golden, the defensive coordinator for the University of Virginia, was named head coach, replaced Bobby Wallace. He would accumulate a 27–34 record before moving to the Miami. With the improvement to Temple's football program, the school was invited to rejoin the Big East Conference as an associate member for football for 2012 and as a full member for all sports in 2013. By the time Temple returned to full membership, the Big East had split along football lines into a new, non-football Big East Conference and the football-sponsoring American Athletic Conference, with Temple joining The American. On December 23, 2010, Steve Addazio, then offensive coordinator at the University of Florida, was named head coach to continue and build upon the foundation Golden had left.
2015 was a breakout year for the program. The Owls won 10 out of 12 regular season games, including victories over Penn State, Cincinnati and a 4-point loss in the waning minutes to Notre Dame, with an AAC Championship game-clinching victory over bowl-bound UConn in the final game of the season. For the first time in generations, the Temple Owls were ranked in the AP, Coaches and College Football Playoff polls for half the season.