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Whether it’s a D-I varsity match or a pickup game, Holy Cross students come together to compete, excel and cheer on their fellow Crusaders in our many athletic programs.The College of the Holy Cross does not discriminate unlawfully in admission to, access to, treatment in or employment in its programs and activities on the basis of a person’s race, religion, color, national origin, age, marital or parental status, veteran status, sex, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other legally protected status, including in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs. Individuals who feel that they have been discriminated against based upon any of these categories may contact the Director of the Office of Title IX and Equal Opportunity. Read the College’s full Nondiscrimination Statement. Holy Cross has a rich history of success with its track & field program. In 1917, Andrew Kelly set the world record in the 300 yard dash. Joe Tierney won the IC4A 440 yard title in 1925, and James Quinn won the IC4A 100 yard in 1928 before going on to win an Olympic gold medal in the 4 × 100 m relay. Leo Larrivee is the only other Crusader to earn an Olympic medal when his 3000-metre team finished with the bronze in the 1924 Olympic Games. In the early 1960s, Charlie Buchta and Kevin Kilgallen were prominent Crusaders on the national scene. The Holy Cross men’s basketball team has won two national tournament championships having won the NCAA Tournament in 1947 and the National Invitation Tournament in 1954 at a time when the NIT was considered to be equal to if not more prestigious than the NCAA Tournament. The team also has reached the Final Four in 1948 and the Elite Eight in 1950 and 1953. In 2016, the team captured its first win in an NCAA Tournament game since the 1953 season. Notable former players include Boston Celtics legends and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn.On March 24, 2006, the Holy Cross men’s hockey team made history by defeating the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota in the first round of the 2006 NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament by the score of 4–3, in overtime. Coined as one of the biggest upsets in NCAA ice hockey history, never since the NCAA tourney expanded to sixteen teams had a sixteen seed beat a number one seed until again in 2015 when the 16th seeded RIT Tigers defeated the first seeded Minnesota State Mavericks by a score of 2–1. In its history, the Holy Cross ice hockey program has seen two NCAA appearances, and has won the Atlantic Hockey and MAAC three times (1999, 2004, 2006). The men’s ice hockey program competes in the Atlantic Hockey Association. Holy Cross has won more than 50 regular season and/or postseason conference championships throughout its Division I history. The majority of these have come in the Patriot League, where it currently competes for most sports. Historically, Holy Cross’ major rival has been the Eagles of Boston College, especially in football. Boston College does not share this view as far as Holy Cross being a “rival”. In 1896, Holy Cross and Boston College played the first football game between the two schools.The Holy Cross Crusaders have a group of loyal fans, sometimes called the “Mount St. James Faithful” or the “Hart Center Faithful”, the nickname coming from the athletic stadium at The College of the Holy Cross.The school color is royal purple. There are two theories of how Holy Cross chose purple as its official color. One suggests it was derived from the royal purple used by Emperor Constantine the Great (born about 275 A.D., died in 337 AD) as displayed on his labarum (military standard) and on those of later Christian emperors of Rome.* – The NIT was widely considered equally prestigious to the NCAA Tournament at the time, particularly because it was played at the high-profile Madison Square Garden.

The other version is attributed to Walter J. Connors, an 1887 graduate, and was printed in the October 1940 issue of the Alumnus. According to the account, there was a disagreement during the 1870s between Holy Cross students from Massachusetts and Connecticut concerning the schools’ baseball uniform colors. Those from Massachusetts purportedly favored the crimson of Harvard, while those from Connecticut favored the deep blue of Yale. Legend has it that a fellow student with a sense of diplomacy resolved the dispute in the chemistry lab, where he mixed copper sulphate (blue) with iron oxide (red) to produce the color of deep purple.

The Holy Cross golf team has also produced some exceptional golfers including Willie Turnesa who won two US Amateur titles (1938, 1948) and a British Amateur (1947), and Paul Harney who, after earning a medal as the stroke play champion at the 1952 NCAA Golf Championship, won six PGA Tour events and was inducted into the PGA of America Hall of Fame.To accommodate larger crowds, the Holy Cross game was routinely held at larger venues off campus, with the 1916 matchup taking place at the newly constructed Fenway Park. A record 54,000 attended the 1922 game at Braves Field, home of the Boston Braves baseball team. On November 28, 1942, Holy Cross beat BC in a huge upset by a score of 55–12, a result that proved fortunate for the losing Eagles. The BC team had booked their victory party for a popular Boston nightclub, but canceled after the upset loss. As a result, the Eagles were not among the nearly 500 who died or the hundreds more who were injured when the nightclub caught fire that night. The name was rediscovered by Stanley Woodward, a sports reporter for the Boston Herald, when he used the term “Crusader” to describe the Holy Cross baseball team in a story written in 1925. The name appealed to the Holy Cross student body, which held a vote later in that year to decide whether this cognomen or one of the other two currently in use – “Chiefs” and “Sagamores”- would be adopted. On October 6, 1925, The Tomahawk, an earlier name of the student newspaper, reported that the results of the ballot were: Crusaders 143, Chiefs 17, Sagamores 7. Holy Cross is a founding member of the Patriot League, with one-quarter of its student body participating in its varsity athletic programs. Principal facilities include Fitton Field for football (capacity: 23,500) and Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field for baseball (3,000), the Hart Center at the Luth Athletic Complex for basketball (3,600) and ice hockey (1,400), the Linda Johnson Smith Soccer Stadium (1,320), and the Smith Wellness Center, located inside the Luth Athletic Complex.The Holy Cross Crusaders are the athletic teams representing the College of the Holy Cross. They compete in NCAA Division I, primarily as members of the Patriot League. In ice hockey, a sport not sponsored by the Patriot League for either sex, the Crusaders are members of two other leagues, with men competing in the Atlantic Hockey Association and women in Hockey East. The men’s rowing team is part of the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges. Of its 25 varsity teams, Holy Cross supports 12 men’s and 13 women’s sports, giving Holy Cross the largest ratio of teams-per-enrollment in the country. Holy Cross’s athletic teams for both men and women are known as the Crusaders.

In recent years, the soccer programs made their first NCAA Tournament appearances with the women appearing in 2000 and the men appearing in 2002. In 2006 and 2007, the women’s lacrosse team made its first NCAA Tournament appearances, defeating LeMoyne in the NCAA play-in game before falling to Duke in 2006, and losing to Northwestern in 2007.

The Holy Cross baseball team won the NCAA National Championship in 1952 and remains the only team from the northeastern part of the United States to have won the College World Series. The Crusaders also reached the College World Series in 1958, 1962, and 1963. In the last two of these seasons, the team featured pitcher Dick Joyce, who briefly made the major leagues, and third baseman John Peterman, who after a short minor-league career went on to become a successful entrepreneur who was parodied on Seinfeld. The Crusaders won their first Patriot League Baseball Tournament title in 2017 and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1978 where it defeated No. 25 Nebraska.The two schools renewed their rivalry in basketball on November 22, 2010, as part of the Jesuit Basketball Spotlight, a national effort to bring attention to Jesuit education. In a game held at BC’s Conte Forum, Boston College posted a 69–56 victory, the Eagles’ 16th in their last 17 games against Holy Cross. On November 18, 2011, the Crusaders defeated the Eagles 86–64 in Worcester.The last basketball game between the two schools was played on January 17, 2006, a 63–53 win for Boston College at Worcester’s DCU Center. Later that year, BC’s athletic director, Gene DeFilippo, caused a minor controversy when he announced that the school would not schedule any more basketball games against Holy Cross, claiming that it was not beneficial for BC.The women’s ice hockey team competed in the Division III New England Hockey Conference from its creation in 2015–16 until moving to Division I play in 2017. This team competed as a Division I independent during the 2017–18 season as part of a scheduling agreement known as the New England Women’s Hockey Alliance before joining Hockey East for the 2018–19 season.

** – The Patriot League did not allow its members to participate in the I-AA football playoffs during its early years, but the undefeated Crusaders finished first in the national polls and The Sporting News declared them National Champions.Also in 2016, 14 Holy Cross varsity athletic teams received Division I Academic Progress Rate (APR) public recognition awards from the NCAA. These teams posted multi-year APR scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports. The 14 total teams earning public recognition awards put Holy Cross in the top 10 among all Division I athletic programs. The Crusaders finished tied for eighth in the nation out of 356 schools, placing them in the top three percent of all of Division I.

Holy Cross student-athletes are among the most academically successful in the nation. In 2016, the Crusaders’ overall Graduation Success Rate of 97 percent for all student-athletes tied for the 17th best mark in the country out of 351 Division I schools. That marked the 10th straight year in which Holy Cross posted a Graduation Success Rate of at least 97 percent.

By the late 1970s the Holy Cross game had become more of a tradition than a rivalry, as Holy Cross football began to cease to be a major power. By 1980, the game was no longer part of the student ticket package, and was mostly attended by alumni. In 1986 Holy Cross changed the direction of its football program, joining the Division I-AA Patriot League, and terminated the series. BC had won 17 of the last 20 games.

It is reported that the name “Crusader” was first associated with Holy Cross in 1884 at an alumni banquet in Boston, where an engraved Crusader mounted on an armored horse appeared at the head of the menu.As FSU has gotten its search for Krikorian underway over the last few weeks, Alford has made it clear that the funding of the program isn’t going anywhere.

“I was not planning on coming back once the job offer was given to Michael Alford in December. You asked me to give it a chance which I agreed to do. My salary request was an amount that I thought would allow me to look past working for someone that I didn’t respect and didn’t feel I could trust. After the negotiation process I am more convinced that I was right in how I viewed things in December. A few hours after this email, FSU sent out a press release stating that the athletic department would immediately be starting a national search for Krikorian’s successor. FSU’s original extension offer was to pay Krikorian an average of $510,000 over the next three years, $100,000 more than the next highest paid women’s soccer coach.FSU didn’t agree to this, but did offer one final deal the morning of March 29 which offered Krikorian $650,000 in guaranteed money with more potential bonuses that could take the salary over $800,000.

Krikorian shared in his email resignation letter to members of the FSU media that the university offered him a generous contract and that his decision to resign on March 29 was not based on money.Furthermore, the recent FSU soccer budget shared by public records request showed the Seminoles had the second-biggest budget in the country at $2.79 million for the most recent season trailing only Texas A&M at $3.09 million.

This despite a perceived slight or lack of trust that led to coach Mark Krikorian abruptly resigning and leaving the program on March 29 mere months after winning his third NCAA Championship at FSU.

From there, the conversation between Krikorian and FSU shifted to a series of one-year deals as it became increasingly more obvious that the coach would not be staying at FSU long-term.The Democrat reached out Krikorian for comment on the release of these email records, and he has not responded. Alford and McCullough similarly were contacted and declined comment on the matter, instead focusing on the future of the program.

“You asked me in the meeting yesterday if money equaled respect and I don’t think I did a good job of explaining my position,” Krikorian’s email to McCullough began.Alford told the Democrat that the funding for the program isn’t changing under the new regime. The national search for Krikorian’s successor is ongoing.

FSU responded to this with a counter to Krikorian’s counter offering an average base salary of $575,000 over three years with a $50,000 signing bonus. With performance bonuses, his annual salary could exceed $800,000.Krikorian and his representation countered this offer with a three-year extension, which would average a base salary of $775,000 and could exceed one million dollars per year with bonuses.

The resignation email he sent to FSU president Richard McCullough at 3:07 p.m. on March 29, two minutes before his email to the FSU media confirms there were other factors at play that led to his resignation.Florida State Director of Athletics Michael Alford made it clear that the athletic department’s funding of its perennial power soccer program isn’t going anywhere or changing.

Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti (£9,597,204) is seventh on the list and is reportedly earning almost three times more than Barcelona counterpart Xavi Hernandez, who is said to be on £3,374,832 per year.According to a 2023 list published by French newspaper L’Equipe this week, Simeone is currently earning an annual salary of £29,846,244 at Atletico, which works out as £573,966 per week.

Pep Guardiola is said to be making £19,721,724 per year at Manchester City, while Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp (£15,714,096) and Chelsea’s Graham Potter (£11,917,404) are also earning eight-figure sums.

Holy Cross is a founding member of the Patriot League, an NCAA Division 1 league. The Patriot League is recognized for placing as much emphasis on academic and leadership success as athletic achievement, and has been celebrated in the media as a refreshing approach to collegiate varsity sports. As a varsity athlete at Holy Cross, you are given the tools to succeed in a demanding academic program, develop socially and spiritually, compete in high-level athletics, and graduate in four years. In fact, Holy Cross itself is renowned for its consistently high student-athlete graduation rates — among the best in the nation.In terms of financials, the Holy Cross women’s track and field program paid out $867,145 in expenses and made $867,145 in total revenue. Even though this means that the program didn’t make any money, at least it wasn’t in the red.

The 13 players of the Holy Cross women’s basketball team are led by a head coach and 3 assistant coaches. The team has an excellent academic progress rate of 1000 – proof that they don’t ignore the importance of getting a good education.There are 44 players on the Holy Cross women’s rowing team, and they are led by one head coach and one assistant coach. The team has an excellent academic progress rate of 992 – proof that they don’t ignore the importance of getting a good education.

In terms of financials, the Holy Cross women’s swimming and diving program paid out $323,627 in expenses and made $323,627 in total revenue. So, the program broke even. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t make any money, but, then again, it didn’t lose any money either.

Of the 23 head coaches at Holy Cross, 11 are leaders of men’s teams and 12 lead women’s teams. The head coaches of men’s teams make about $86,387 on average, and the yearly average salary of women’s team head coaches is $66,707.The Holy Cross men’s lacrosse team is made up of 43 players who, in turn, are trained and guided by a head coach and 2 assistant coaches. The team members have more than lacrosse on their mind, too, as seen by the team’s great academic progress rate of 1000.

The 18 players of the Holy Cross women’s tennis team are led by a head coach and an assistant coach. With an excellent academic progress rate of 1000, the team has shown that they take there time in the classroom seriously.There are 885 athletes who take part in at least one sport at the school, 425 men and 460 women. They receive, on average, about $13,361 in sports-related student aid to attend Holy Cross. Looking at the difference between men and women, males received an average of about $15,630 and women received an average of $11,264.

On the money side of things, the Holy Cross women’s field hockey program brought home $955,486 in revenue and paid out $955,486 in total expenses. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.

On the money side of things, the Holy Cross men’s tennis program brought home $58,192 in revenue and paid out $58,192 in total expenses. So, the program broke even. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t make any money, but, then again, it didn’t lose any money either.The women’s rowing program at Holy Cross made $344,397 in revenue and spend $344,397 in expenses. So, the program broke even. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t make any money, but, then again, it didn’t lose any money either.

The women’s soccer program at Holy Cross made $998,315 in revenue and spent $998,315 in expenses. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.

The Holy Cross men’s basketball program paid out $2,333,917 in expenses while making $2,333,917 in total revenue. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.

On the money side of things, the Holy Cross women’s volleyball program brought home $682,679 in revenue and paid out $682,679 in total expenses. So, the program broke even. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t make any money, but, then again, it didn’t lose any money either.

On the money side of things, the Holy Cross football program brought home $5,640,013 in revenue and paid out $5,640,013 in total expenses. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.There are 18 players on the Holy Cross women’s volleyball team, and they are led by one head coach and one assistant coach. In addition to spending time on the field, teammates score well in the classroom, too. As a whole, the team has a super academic progress rate of 989.

Holy Cross brought in $132,858 in revenue from its men’s swimming and diving program while paying out $132,858 in expenses. So, the program broke even. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t make any money, but, then again, it didn’t lose any money either.The net profit or loss can vary with each sport. For example, sports like basketball and football are often moneymakers for a school while other sports could be operating at a deficit. The chart below compares the amount of money made (or lost) for each of the men’s sports offered at Holy Cross.Holy Cross sports teams made $33,800,312 in revenue, but they did have to spend $33,800,312 for expenses. Although the school didn’t make any money, it didn’t lose any either!

In terms of financials, the Holy Cross men’s lacrosse program paid out $592,635 in expenses and made $592,635 in total revenue. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.Holy Cross brought in $1,252,278 in revenue from its women’s ice hockey program while paying out $1,252,278 in expenses. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.

In terms of financials, the Holy Cross men’s soccer program paid out $826,045 in expenses and made $826,045 in total revenue. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.Holy Cross brought in $61,251 in revenue from its women’s golf program while paying out $61,251 in expenses. On the positive side, this means the program didn’t lose any money – and that’s not something every college sports program can claim.