Patriot League

For the professional football league, see American Patriot League.
Patriot League
FormerlyColonial League
AssociationNCAA
Founded1986; 38 years ago (1986)
CommissionerJennifer Heppel (since 2015)
Sports fielded
  • 24
    • men's: 11
    • women's: 13
DivisionDivision I
SubdivisionFCS
No. of teams10 full, 4 associate
HeadquartersBethlehem, Pennsylvania
RegionNortheast
Official websitepatriotleague.org
Locations
Location of teams in {{{title}}}
Patriot League football officials and referee

The Patriot League is a collegiate athletic conference comprising private institutions of higher education and two United States service academies based in the Northeastern United States. Except for the Ivy League, it is the most selective group of higher education institutions in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and has a very high student-athlete graduation rate for both the NCAA graduation success rate and the federal graduation rate.[1]

The Patriot League has 10 core members:[2] American University, the United States Military Academy (Army), Boston University, Bucknell University, Colgate University, College of the Holy Cross, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, Loyola University Maryland, and the United States Naval Academy (Navy). All 10 core members participate in the NCAA Division I for all Patriot League sports that they offer. Since not all schools sponsor every available NCAA sport, most schools are affiliated with other collegiate conferences for sports such as ice hockey and wrestling.

Only half of the conference's core members compete in the Patriot League for football, as part of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS): Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, and Lehigh. Of the five other conference members, American, Boston University, and Loyola Maryland do not sponsor football, while Army and Navy play in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as football-only members of the American Athletic Conference (The American).

Four other private institutions are Patriot League members only for specific sports, and are referred to as associate members. Fordham University and Georgetown University are associate members in football, while MIT is an associate member in women's rowing and the University of Richmond is an associate member in women's golf. Starting in the 2025 season, Richmond will also be an associate member in football.

  1. ^ "Who We Are". patriotleague.org.
  2. ^ ""Who We Are" About the Patriot League". Patriot League. Archived from the original on October 30, 2013. Retrieved July 3, 2013.