Pomona–Pitzer Sagehens

There are 11 women's and 10 men's teams.^[5]

Pomona College's first intercollegiate sports teams were formed in 1895.^[1] The college was one of the three founding members of the SCIAC in 1914, and its football team played in the inaugural game at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923, losing to the University of Southern California Trojans.^[1] Between 1946 and 1956, Pomona joined with Claremont Men's College (CMC) to compete as Pomona-Claremont.^[1] In 1970, Pomona began competing with Pitzer College (then seven years old) on an interim basis, and the arrangement became permanent two years later.^[1]

The Sagehens ranked 15th out of 322 competing Division III schools and 2nd among SCIAC schools in the 2023‍–‍2024 Division III NACDA Directors' Cup, which ranks athletics programs and awards points relative to their finish in NCAA championships.^[6] The water polo, track and field, women's soccer, and women's tennis teams are regarded as particularly strong.^[7]

• Early athletics at Pomona
• 
  Football team, c. 1899
• 
  Pomona organized the first women's basketball team in Southern California in 1903.^[1]
• 
  Football team class of 1907
• 
  Football team in 1911
• 
  Baseball team playing the Boston Red Sox, 1911^[8]
• 
  Track meet, 1912
• 
  Football team playing USC in the inaugural L.A. Coliseum game, 1923

The Sagehens have won 48 individual NCAA Division III championships: 19 in men's track and field, 12 in women's swimming and diving, 8 in women's tennis, 6 in men's swimming and diving, and 4 in women's track and field.^[9] Additionally, they have won four team titles: women's tennis in 1992, back-to-back titles in men's cross country in 2019 and 2021, and an additional title in men's cross country in 2023.^[9]

Pomona-Pitzer's primary indoor athletics facility is the Center for Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness (CARW),^[a] located near the center of Pomona's campus. It was reconstructed and renovated in 2022,^[16] replacing the Liliore Green Rains Center for Sport and Recreation, built in 1989.^[17] The gym is complemented by various outdoor facilities, mostly located within the naturalistic eastern portion of Pomona's campus known as the Wash.^[18]

• Pomona-Pitzer athletics facilities
• 
  Gym main entrance
• 
  Gym north façade at night
• 
  Practice gym
• 
  Gym lobby
• 
  Merritt Field
• 
  Alumni Baseball Field
• 
  Haldeman Aquatics Center

The third iteration of the Cecil the Sagehen costume (adopted in 2017^[19]) dabbing

A male sagehen with its gular sacs inflated during a courtship ritual

The official mascot of the team is Cecil the Sagehen, a greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus).^[20][21] The bird is a large ground-dweller native to the western United States (although not Southern California), and is distinguished by its long, pointed tail and complex lek mating system. It is named after the sagebrush on which it feeds.^[22]

Pomona-Pitzer is the only team in the world to use the Sagehen as a mascot,^[23] and it is often noted for its goofiness.^[24][25] Rather than in the grouse's natural brown and white colors, the mascot is rendered in the team's official colors, blue (for Pomona) and orange (for Pitzer).^[26]

The precise origin of the nickname is unknown. Pomona competed under a variety of names in its early years, including "the Blue and White" and "the Huns".^[1] The first known appearance of "Sagehens" was in a 1913 issue of The Student Life newspaper, and in 1918 it became the sole nickname.^[20] Later Pomona-Claremont began using it, and it is now the nickname for the combined Pomona-Pitzer team. The first known reference to "Cecil" was made in the 1946 Metate (Pomona's yearbook).^[20]

The Sagehens' primary rival is the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags and Athenas, the joint team of the three other undergraduate Claremont Colleges.^[27][28] The rivalry is known as the Sixth Street Rivalry,^[29] referring to the street that separates the teams' athletics facilities.^[30] Historically, Pomona had a rivalry with the Occidental College Tigers.^[23][30]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens athletics.

• Official website
• Coverage of the Sagehens in The Student Life