Athletics
Originally known as the Hobart Deacons, Hobart's athletic teams became known as the "Statesmen" in 1936, following the football team's season opener against Amherst College. The morning after the game, The New York Times referred to the team as "the statesmen from Geneva," and the name stuck. The nickname for William Smith's athletic teams comes from a contest held in 1982. Several names were submitted, but "Herons" was selected because of the strong and graceful birds that lived at nearby Odell's Pond. These ominous birds frequently flew over the athletic fields as the teams were practicing.
Hobart and William Smith recently finished construction on the state of the art Caird Center for Sports and Recreation, which is now home to most of its athletics teams.
Hobart's archrival in football is Union College in Schenectady, New York. Other team rivalries include Rensselaer (football, basketball); Rochester (football); Elmira and Manhattanville (hockey); Cornell (one of the oldest in lacrosse), Syracuse and Georgetown (lacrosse); and Colgate University (crew). William Smith has rivalries in St. Lawrence (lacrosse, basketball, field hockey), Union (soccer, field hockey, basketball, lacrosse), Hamilton (field hockey, basketball and lacrosse) and Ithaca (crew).
Hobart sponsors 11 varsity programs (basketball, crew, cross country, football, golf, hockey, lacrosse, sailing, soccer, squash, tennis), while William Smith also sponsors 11 varsity programs (basketball, crew, cross country, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, sailing, soccer, squash, swimming & diving, and tennis).
The colleges compete in NCAA Division III, with the exception of men's lacrosse, which competes in the Division I ECAC Lacrosse League. The storied Statesmen lacrosse team has compiled sixteen national championships (1 USILA, 2 NCAA Division II, and 13 NCAA Division III).
The William Smith field hockey team has captured three national championships, ascending to the top of Division III in 1992, 1997 and 2000.
The lone coed team, the HWS sailing team is a member of the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association. In 2005, the Colleges won the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association Team Race National Championship and the ICSA Coed Dinghy National Championship.
The William Smith soccer team was the first Heron squad to capture a national championship, winning the 1988 title bout with a 1–0 victory over University of California, San Diego.
The Hobart Crew team has also found success recently, earning medals at the Head of The Charles Regatta, the ECAC National Invitational Regatta, and the IRA National Championships. While the Hobart Crew team has won gold in every event they have entered since the inception of rowing as a Liberty League Sport, they failed to win the team championships only once (2004.) The eventual champions, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, were known for having a large team and only able to defeat the Statesmen by securing a win in the 2nd Varsity 8+ - the only event that Hobart did not have an entry. The Crew Team took part in the Henley Royal Regatta in Henley, England in the summer of 2011.
The colleges' main conference affiliation is with the Liberty League with the following exceptions: Hobart hockey competes in the ECAC West; Hobart lacrosse competes in the ECAC Lacrosse League; and the William Smith golf team is an independent.
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