From their beginnings in Boston’s South End, Boston College athletics programs have had a central role to play in the life of the University. The Athletic Association was established at Boston College in 1883 "to encourage the practice of manly sports, and to promote by these the esprit de corps of the College Students, who are its members." Although track and baseball had begun in the 1870s, and a student-organized football team was started in 1891, there had been no official sanction of or arrangements for games, largely due to a lack of dedicated practice grounds for sports teams. After the move to Chestnut Hill, the long-planned-for athletic field was opened in 1915. Alumni Field, as it was called, was laid out by the Boston landscape architects Pray, Hubbard and White.

While baseball and football teams have existed since shortly after the University’s inception, hockey didn’t become fully established until the 1920s; prior to this period, Boston College fielded a team in the very similar sport of ice polo. Hockey proper became a varsity sport in the 1920s and the Boston College Eagles quickly established themselves as a force to be reckoned with, winning the national championship for the first time in the 1922-1923 season. Football, too, has an illustrious history at Boston College. Early victories over Yale were followed by a 1940 national championship win and ever-increasing national prominence, forcing the team to relocate temporarily to Fenway Park and Brave’s Field (now Boston University’s Nickerson Field Sports Complex).

In the years following World War II, an extensive fundraising effort was mounted in order to update the existing athletics facilities on the Chestnut Hill Campus. As a result of this campaign, in 1957 varsity sports returned to the main campus in the newly erected Alumni Stadium and Auditorium Arena.

During the 1960s the Boston College Eagles basketball team began to rise to national prominence, first winning invitations to the NCAA and then, in 1981, becoming the Big East champions. Women’s varsity basketball achieved national ranking in 1983. The 1990s and 2000s have seen the continued success of Boston College’s sports programs.

Sources:

Donovan, Charles F., David R. Dunigan, and Paul A. Fitzgerald. History of Boston College: From the Beginnings to 1990. Chestnut Hill, Mass.: University Press of Boston College, 1990.