The Rice University athletic teams are known as the Rice Owls . The name comes from the owls in Rice's crest. Rice participates in NCAA Division I athletics and is part of Conference USA. Rice was a member of the Southwest Conference until its breakup in 1996. Rice then joined the Western Athletic Conference before joining C-USA on July 1, 2005. Rice is the second smallest school competing in NCAA Division I FBS football measured by undergraduate enrollment, just above the University of Tulsa's 2,756. Rice's major sports rivalry is with cross-town University of Houston, also of C-USA.

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Baseball

The Rice baseball team is currently the school's top athletic program and one of the NCAA's top baseball programs, having won its conference the last twelve consecutive seasons stretching back to the final Southwest Conference championship. The Owls won the College World Series in 2003. More recently, Rice's baseball team has finished third in both the 2006 and 2007 College World Series tournaments. Rice now has made six appearances to Omaha for the CWS. The team has played at on-campus Reckling Park since the 2000 season.

Football

The Owls play at an on-campus football facility, Rice Stadium, which was the site of Super Bowl VIII and a speech by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962 in which he challenged the nation to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. Rice Stadium opened in 1950 with a capacity of 70,000 seats. After improvements in 2006, the stadium is currently configured to seat 47,000 for football but can be readily reconfigured to its original capacity of 70,000 ^[1], more than the total number of Rice alumni, living and deceased ^[2].

The Owls began playing football in 1919 as a member of the Southwest Conference. They played at the site of what is now the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium until 1950, when Rice Stadium was completed. During its first 40 years, Rice's football program was a regional and national powerhouse. By the early 1960s, the program found it difficult to compete against schools that were ten times its size or more. In 2006, the football team played in the New Orleans Bowl, the first time the team had gone to a bowl game since 1961, ending the second-longest bowl drought in the country at the time.

The Rice Owls play in the Western Division of Conference USA and are currently coached by David Bailiff.

The Rice Owls finished the 2008 Regular season with a 9-3 overall record (7-1 C-USA)--the first time they won more than seven games in over 40 years--and accepted a bid to play against Western Michigan University in the Texas Bowl on December 30th where they came away with a 38-14 victory for their first bowl victory since 1954.

At the end of the 2008 season wide receiver Jarett Dillard was named a 2nd Team All-American by the Football Writers Association, the first Rice Owl selected in 50 years. He has also been named an All-American by Sports Illustrated, CBSSports.com (where he was joined by fellow owls Chase Clement and James Casey), and Walter Camp.

Bowl Game History	Result
1938 Cotton Bowl	Rice 28 Colorado 14
1947 Orange Bowl	Rice 8 Tennessee 0
1950 Cotton Bowl	Rice 27 North Carolina 13
1954 Cotton Bowl	Rice 28 Alabama 6
1958 Cotton Bowl	Rice 7 Navy 20
1961 Sugar Bowl	Rice 6 Ole Miss 14
1961 Bluebonnet Bowl	Rice 7 Kansas 33
2006 New Orleans Bowl	Rice 17 Troy 41
2008 Texas Bowl	Rice 38 Western Michigan 14

Basketball

Men's basketball

Rice's men's basketball teams won 10 conference titles in the former Southwest Conference (1918, 1935*, 1940, 1942*, 1943*, 1944*, 1945, 1949*, 1954*, 1970; * denotes shared title). Most recently, guard Morris Almond was drafted in the 2007 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz.

Women's basketball

In 2006-07, the Rice women's basketball team made the NCAA tournament.

Other sports

Rice has been very successful in women's sports in recent years. In 2004-05, Rice sent its women's volleyball, soccer, and basketball teams to their respective NCAA tournaments. In 2005-06, the women's soccer, basketball, and tennis teams advanced, and five individuals competed at the national championships in outdoor track and field. In 2006-07, the Rice women's basketball team made the NCAA tournament, while four Rice women's outdoor track and field athletes received individual NCAA berths, two of them earning All-America honors.

Traditions

In addition to football, Rice Stadium also serves as the performance venue for the university's Marching Owl Band, or "MOB." Despite its name, the MOB is a scatter band which focuses on performing humorous skits and routines rather than traditional formation marching. Prior to the dissolution of the Southwest Conference, the MOB had a lesser rivalry with the "Fightin' Texas Aggie Band" from Texas A&M.

Rice's mascot is Sammy the Owl. In previous decades, the university kept several live owls on campus in front of Lovett College, but this practice has been discontinued.

Rice also has a fourteen member coed cheerleading squad and an all-female dance team, both of which perform at football and basketball games throughout the year.

Fight Song: Rice Fight Song Alma Mater: Rice's Honor :

Facilities

Facility	Sport(s)	Capacity
Rice Stadium	Football	70,000
Tudor Fieldhouse	Basketball, volleyball	5,000
Reckling Park	Baseball	5,000
Rice Track/Soccer Stadium	Soccer, track and field	5,000
Jake Hess Tennis Stadium	Tennis	1,400
Rice Pool	Swimming	300

See also

• Bayou Bucket
• Marching Owl Band

References

1. RiceOwls.com Rice Stadium Page
2. Rice Facts: Alumni
3. http://riceowls.cstv.com/trads/rice-traditions.html RiceOwls.com Traditions Page