Traditions Thursday: Winning Tradition

11/12/2020 9:36:00 AM | General

WKU Athletics will be highlighting traditions on The Hill on Thursdays throughout the fall as part of a feature series called Traditions Thursday. The final week of the series highlights the winning tradition WKU has built over a century of competition..

By: Story by: Grayson Lang

Beginning in 1928 with the WKU women’s basketball team winning the university its’ first championship, to last year’s WKU volleyball team winning the Conference USA regular season and tournament championship, WKU has continued a tradition of winning.

Since winning the first championship for WKU, the women’s basketball team has totaled 20 overall conference championships with having won three since entering C-USA. The men’s basketball team has collected 46 conference championships from the Ohio Valley Conference, Sun Belt, and C-USA.

The WKU men’s and women’s track and field and cross country teams have compiled an impressive 74 conference championships over time at WKU. Men’s track and field leads the bunch with 26 championships with the women’s track and field team winning nine of their own. In their own respect, WKU men’s cross country team has 22 conference championships while the women have 17.

WKU Football has added onto the championship tradition at WKU by winning a NCAA Division I-AA National Championship in 2002, along with an additional 13 conference championships as well.

WKU Baseball has won 12 conference championships while WKU softball has collected two since its inception in 2000.

The WKU volleyball team has 17 conference championships in their history while winning five of the last six C-USA championships since entering the conference.

The women’s tennis team has notched three conference championships over the years. In addition to this, the men’s golf team has 10 conference championships in the history of WKU.

Upon joining Conference USA in 2014, WKU leads the conference across the board in Conference Championships. These championships have come from a number of different sports for WKU including volleyball, indoor and outdoor track and field, cross country, softball, baseball, golf, tennis, men’s and women’s basketball, and football.

As shown, WKU has had success at every level of competition and in every sport a team has represented WKU in. At 230 conference championships and counting, WKU continues to carry its championship tradition nearly a century later.