The Troy Trojans are the sports teams of Troy University. Troy State Normal School began its sports program in 1909, when it fielded its first football team. Through the early years, Troy's athletics nicknames were not official and varied by the sport and the coach. Eventually, teams all began to use the name "Troy State Teachers", but when the athletic teams moved into NAIA competition, the nickname was then changed to the "Red Wave".
In the early 1970s, the student body voted to change the name to Trojans after many felt that Red Wave was too similar to the University of Alabama's nickname, the Crimson Tide. Prior to becoming a member of NCAA Division I athletics in 1993, Troy University was a member of the Gulf South Conference of the NCAA Division II ranks. Troy's primary rivals were Jacksonville State University, Livingston University (now the University of West Alabama), and the University of North Alabama. In 2004, Troy joined the Sun Belt Conference of the Football Bowl Subdivision.
They began playing in the NCAA's Division I-A in 2001, became a football only member of the Sun Belt Conference in 2004, and joined that conference for all other sports in 2005. Troy University's athletics nickname was the Red Wave until the early 1970s when the student body voted to change the name to Trojans.
Prior to becoming a member of NCAA Division One athletics in 1993, Troy University was a member of the Gulf South Conference of the NCAA Division II ranks. At the time, Troy's primary rivals were Jacksonville State University, Livingston University (now the University of West Alabama), and the University of North Alabama. The rivalry between Troy and Jacksonville State was arguably the fiercest of those. However, since Troy University moved to Division I-A participation in football and because Troy and JSU no longer share the same conference affiliation, this once heated rivalry has cooled significantly. Troy has Sun Belt rivalries with all East Division schools (Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, and South Alabama). Currently, the Trojans' most prominent rival in all sports is their main Sun Belt rival, South Alabama.
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Sports sponsored
A member of the Sun Belt Conference, Troy sponsors teams in eight men's and nine women's NCAA sanctioned sports.
Men
The Troy University baseball team won two Division II national championships in 1986 and 1987 under the leadership of baseball coach, Chase Riddle. One of Troy's most significant victories in baseball came in April 1998 when the Trojans knocked off the #3 nationally ranked Alabama Crimson Tide by a score of 8-4 at Riddle-Pace Field on the Troy campus.
In 2006, Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year Bobby Pierce led the Trojans to a regular season conference title, conference tournament title, and an NCAA Regional appearance with an overall record of 47–16. The Men of Troy were the 2-seed in the Tuscaloosa Regional in 2006, defeating the Southern Miss Golden Eagles twice, but were eliminated by the Alabama Crimson Tide in the championship game. Following the season, Jared Keel, Mike Felix, and Tom King were selected in the MLB draft. Troy's highest rank of the season was #29 by the NCBWA.
In 2007 the Trojans went 34–27, finishing in a tie for second in the Sun Belt Conference, and were selected as a number three seed in the Oxford Regional hosted by Ole Miss. The Trojans were defeated by Southern Miss and Sam Houston State in consecutive games and eliminated from the regional.
In 2011, the Trojans struck again by winning the Sun Belt regular season title and earning a bid to the Nashville Regional as a 3-seed. The Trojans defeated 2-seed Oklahoma State in the first round, but fell to 1-seed Vanderbilt and Belmont consecutively. The Trojans ended the 2011 season with a 42-17 record. Troy's highest rank of the season was #18 in the Baseball America poll. Troy had also reached a ranking of #25 in the USA Today coaches poll and #22 in the College Baseball News poll.
Troy once again won a regular season title in 2013, this time in a thrilling fashion. The Trojans played #18 South Alabama during the last series of the regular season. After losing the first game of the series, the Trojans went on to win the next two games and clinch a share of the Sun Belt title. They finished the regular season with a 39-16 record. Troy finished the 2013 regular season ranked #21 in the College Baseball News poll.
The Troy University men's basketball team was under the direction of head coach Don Maestri for 31 years until his retirement in 2013. Coach Maestri is the winningest coach in school history, with exactly 500 career wins, and he has won numerous conference coach-of-the-year awards during his tenure at Troy University. The program has won 11 conference championships in basketball, with six of them coming in the Division I era. On January 12, 1992, Troy defeated DeVry University of Atlanta by the score of 258–141 (or 253–141, according to some journalists). This is the highest-scoring game in NCAA basketball history and Troy State's score of 258 is the highest score in NCAA basketball history. The Trojans competed in the 2003 NCAA Tournament in Nashville against Xavier University after winning the Atlantic Sun Conference title.
Women
In 1997, the Troy University women's basketball team, under the direction of head coach Jerry Hester, won the Mid Continent Conference (now the Summit League) tournament championship in Buffalo, New York, and received an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament where the Trojans traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia, and fell in the first round to the Virginia by a score of 96–74. Under current head coach Chanda Rigby, Troy has been to the NCAA Tournament twice and has won two Sun Belt tournament titles. In 2020, the Trojans won the Sun Belt regular season conference championship for the first time in program history.
The Troy University women's soccer team began in 2003 when the stadium, Jesse H. Colley Track/Soccer Stadium, was first constructed, seating 500. Later, in 2010, the stadium was renovated to include a press box to be used by both the track and soccer team. The field, costing around $1 million to build, measures about 115 yards by 75 yards. The team plays in the Sun Belt Conference, along with: South Alabama, Georgia State, Coastal Carolina, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Arkansas State, Louisiana, Texas State, Little Rock, and ULM. Though, they are currently last in the east division with four conference points, compared to the leader's, South Alabama's, twenty-four points. Currently the team is led by head coach Ged O'Connor, and assistant coaches Nicole Waters and the new addition Kayla Saager.
Ged O'Connor, hired in January 2017, is just the seventh head coach in this program's history. O'Connor had prior experience to coaching from being the head coach of the Saint Leo University women's soccer team for eleven seasons. Furthermore, Nicole Waters will enter her third season with the Troy University women's soccer program come fall of 2021. Before Troy, Waters was a graduate assistant at Mercer University for two seasons. She is a Canada native, but after her collegiate career at Dayton, coach Waters played professionally at FC Slovacko Zeny of the Czech Republican league. The newly hired Kayla Saager joined the Trojans in 2020. Her soccer experience includes playing at three colleges in her career (NC State, West Virginia, and Binghamton). Saager will be held responsible for coaching the Troy University's attacking side, specifically.
Upon Troy University's athletics moving all sports to the NCAA's Division I in 1993, the Troy softball program was started that same year and officially began their first season in 1994 under head coach Melanie Davis. Under Davis' leadership, the program immediately became a competitive softball program, finishing their first season in Division I with a 40-13 record, including a 4-3 win over an already prominent program in Georgia Tech.
Defunct programs
Rodeo
Troy University had one of the top collegiate rodeo programs in the nation during its existence. In 2007, Troy calf roper Ben Mayworth won the calf roping national championship at the National Finals College Rodeo in Casper, Wyoming. The rodeo program's home facility was the Pike County Cattlemen's Arena in Troy where it hosted a three-day rodeo each October that featured college rodeo programs from throughout the southern region of the United States.
The university discontinued its rodeo program at the end of the 2014 season.
National championships
Troy has won 14 NCAA national championships across five different sports, as well as 2 NAIA national championships.
Team
Football
1968 NAIA National Champions
1984 NCAA Division II National Champions
1987 NCAA Division II National Champions
Baseball
1986 NCAA Division II National Champions
1987 NCAA Division II National Champions
Men's Basketball
1993 NCAA Division II National Finalists
Men's Golf
1976 NCAA Division II National Champions
1977 NCAA Division II National Champions
1978 NCAA Division II National Finalists
1983 NCAA Division II National Finalists
1984 NCAA Division II National Champions
1992 NCAA Division II National Finalists
Women's Golf
1984 NCAA Division II National Champions
1986 NCAA Division II National Champions
1989 NCAA Division II National Champions
Individual
Men's Golf
1980 NCAA Division II Individual National Champion - Paul Perini
Men's Track & Field
1976 NAIA 400-meter dash National Champion - Charles Oliver
Men's Rodeo
2007 College National Finals Rodeo National Champion (tie-down roping) - Ben Mayworth