A century ago a team of administrators at Pomona launched a second school next door and named it the Graduate School of Claremont Colleges. Now known as Claremont Graduate University, it kickstarted the birth of the consortium and a completely new era for Pomona—and sports were no exception. Here’s a brief timeline of athletics at the Claremont Colleges.
Pomona’s track team, 1911
1895: Pomona forms teams in football, baseball and track to compete against other West Coast institutions. For more than 50 years Pomona uses multiple nicknames interchangeably, including the Sage Hens, the Huns, and the “Blue and White.”
One of Pomona’s first women’s basketball teams
1903: Pomona introduces the sport of women’s basketball to Southern California colleges with the region’s first team, three full years before the formation of the men’s team
1914: Pomona becomes a founding member of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC).
1946: Pomona starts competing with the new “Claremont Men’s College” (now CMC) as the Pomona-Claremont Sagehens.
1958: Claremont Men’s College separates from Pomona athletically, combining with Harvey Mudd College to become the “Claremont-Mudd Stags.”
Pomona-Pitzer and CMS face off on the basketball court
1970: Pomona joins with Pitzer to become the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens.
1976: SCIAC starts sponsoring women’s sports, leading Scripps to join Claremont-Mudd to become Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, with the nickname of the Athenas for women’s teams.