San Francisco Dons


The San Francisco Dons is the nickname of the athletic teams at the University of San Francisco. The Dons compete in NCAA Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association as members of the West Coast Conference, of which USF is a charter member.

History

Athletics at USF dates back to its founding in 1855, when founder Anthony Maraschi, S.J. organized ball games as recreation for the first students. However, intercollegiate competition only dates back to 1907, when then-Saint Ignatius College began playing organized baseball, basketball, and rugby against other local colleges and high schools. Rivalries with neighboring Santa Clara University and Saint Mary's College of California have their origins in this early period.
Teams were originally known as the "Grey Fog", and red and blue were Saint Ignatius College's colors. However, as the college began to develop an identity distinct from the high school—the college became the University of San Francisco in 1930—it adopted green and gold as its colors in 1927 and chose the Don as its mascot in 1932. The old Saint Ignatius High School later became Saint Ignatius College Preparatory and retained the red and blue colors.
Three USF alumni participated in the 2016 Summer Olympics - Israeli long-distance runner Maor Tiyouri, basketball player John Cox and synchronized swimmer Mariya Koroleva. Tiyouri also competed in the marathon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Sports sponsored

Baseball

2005 was a banner year for the baseball program, as the Diamond Dons finished with a 38–18 record, placed eight players in the all-conference team and earned Nino Giarrantano coach of the year honors. This was followed in 2006 with a 38–21 record, the WCC conference regular season championship, and a Top 25 ranking. However, USF lost in the WCC conference championship to Pepperdine but still was given an at large berth into their first ever postseason. USF did not advance in the tournament as they were beaten by the University of Miami, and Manhattan College.
File:Robert Abel.jpg|thumb|150px|A Dons baseball player is congratulated by a teammate after scoring a run in a 2010 game
Future major leaguer Aaron Poreda pitched for the Diamond Dons, finishing his freshman 2005 season with a 2.16 ERA, the fifth-lowest in team history and third-best in the WCC, and his hits-per-9-innings ratio of 6.48 was second-best in the conference. In 2006 he posted a WCC-best 2.49 ERA. In the NCAA regional he pitched the team to a 5–1 victory over No. 6 national seed Nebraska. Poreda was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the first round in the 2007 Major League Baseball draft; at the time, he was throwing a 97 miles per hour fastball.
Nino Giarrantano became head coach in 1998, previously serving as hitting coach at Arizona State University. Giarrantano was named 3-time JC National Coach of the Year and 2005–2006 WCC Coach of the Year. Since arriving at USF, the team has had its best four-year stretch in its program's history, 104-69 overall since 2004.
USF began receiving reports of sexual misconduct and psychological abuse from the baseball team in late 2021, regarding assistant coach Troy Nakamura, and fired him in January 2023. Two months later, it was reported that Nakamura was permitted access to the baseball facilities by Giarrantano, and a class action lawsuit was filed against both Nakamura and Giarrantano the following March by three anonymous players. Two days after the suit was filed, Giarrantano was fired.
Assistant coach Mat Keplinger became interim head coach, and the following season, Rob DiToma, then head coach of the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights baseball team, was hired as new head baseball coach.

Dante Benedetti Diamond at Max Ulrich Field

The Dons' home field is named after Dante Benedetti, USF's head coach from 1962 to 1980. Benedetti attended then-Saint Ignatius College from 1937 to 1940, during which he lettered in Baseball, Football, and Boxing. During his tenure as head coach, he accumulated 373 career wins and has been inducted into the university's athletic hall of fame. Also during his tenure as head coach, the university wanted to cut the program for financial reasons. However, to keep the program alive Benedetti agreed to lower his salary. For the remaining 16 years of his coaching career, he was paid $1 a year.
The field is also named after Max Ulrich, a benefactor of the University of San Francisco.

Drafted players

Over the years of USF's baseball tradition, a number of players have been drafted into professional baseball. Of these players, a few have had debuts in the Major Leagues:
PlayerYears at USFMLB Debut
1908–1911July 8, 1911
1932–1932May 18, 1932
1929–1955April 15, 1936
1937–1940April 24, 1946
1940–1944September 19, 1948
1942–1944April 28, 1951
1947–1950April 14, 1953
1956–1960August 18, 1960
1960–1961September 22, 1963
1968–1971September 5, 1977
1992–1993May 27, 1998
1995–1997April 3, 2001
1993–1996June 13, 2001
1999–2001April 14, 2003
1995–1995April 2, 2005
2005–2007June 12, 2009
2004–2006September 3, 2010
2010–2012March 31, 2019
2012–2014May 16, 2017
2013-2013March 29, 2018

Men's basketball

USF is best known for its basketball program. The men's basketball team have won three national titles: the 1949 NIT under Pete Newell and the 1955 and 1956 NCAA championships under Phil Woolpert. The latter two were led by future National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame members Bill Russell and K.C. Jones.
USF retained its status as a basketball powerhouse into the 1970s and early 80s, holding the distinction of being a "major" program in a "mid-major" conference. It held the number-one spot in the polls on numerous occasions. In 1977, led by All-American center Bill Cartwright, the Dons went 29–0 and were regarded as the #1 team in the nation in both major polls before dropping their last two games.

Controversies

The Dons' prominence in the 1970s came at a price, however. The NCAA placed the Dons on probation two times in the late 1970s. Head coach Bob Gaillard was fired after the first, and an in-house inquiry after the second resulted in the firing of his successor, Dan Belluomini. It was also well known that basketball players got special treatment; many of them were marginal students at best, and at least one instance where a player threatened another student was swept under the rug by school officials. It was also common for "tutors" to take tests and write papers for players.
The situation came to a head in December 1981, when All-American guard Quintin Dailey assaulted a female student. During the subsequent investigation, Dailey admitted taking a no-show job at a business owned by a prominent non-sports USF donor. The donor had also paid Dailey $5,000 since 1980. Combined with other revelations, school president Rev. John Lo Schiavo announced on July 29, 1982, that he was suspending the basketball program—the first time a school had shut down a major sport under such circumstances. The move was applauded by several members of the coaching fraternity, as the Dailey matter revealed a program that was, in the words of San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter Glenn Dickey, "totally out of control."
LoSchiavo resurrected the program in 1985 under former star Jim Brovelli, who quickly returned the program to respectability. He was not able to reach postseason play, however, and resigned in 1995. The program has only reached the postseason twice since its revival—an NCAA berth in 1998 under Phil Mathews and a 2005 NIT berth under former coach Jessie Evans.
The program regressed the next few years, and Jessie Evans was granted a request for a 'leave of absence' on December 27, 2007. Basketball coach Eddie Sutton took over on an interim basis, needing two wins for a personal milestone of 800 career coaching victories. At the time, Bob Knight was the only other Division I men's coach to have accomplished the feat. After months of speculation, Evans was finally officially fired by USF on March 20, 2008, and a national coaching search was launched, including the use of an executive search consultant company, DHR International.
Rex Walters was named as the Dons' head coach on April 14, 2008. On March 9, 2016, after eight seasons during which the Dons were unable to do more than break even, athletic director Scott Sidwell fired Walters.
On March 30, 2016, Kyle Smith was named as the new head coach. Prior to joining USF, Smith had spent the prior six years as head coach of the Columbia University basketball team. For nine years prior to that, he was assistant coach at Saint Mary's College of California, which went to the Sweet 16 in his final year.

Women's basketball

Women's basketball also experienced recent successes, including appearances in the NCAA women's tournament in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 2016 and a WNIT berth in 2002. The 1996 season represented their best ever, as the women's team made it into the tournament's Sweet Sixteen. The team is presently coached by Molly Goodenbour.