Abilene Christian University - Athletics

Athletics

Formerly a charter member of the Division I Southland Conference, Abilene Christian has been in the Lone Star Conference (LSC) of Division II of the NCAA since 1973. In 2007, the conference included 33 ACU current and former student athletes in its 75-member all-sports team commemorating the conference's 75th anniversary. Through 2009, ACU is fourth in NCAA history in team national championships won with 57, trailing Division I schools UCLA, Stanford, and USC, and tied with Division III school Kenyon College.

In 2012 Abilene Christian had received NCAA permission to compete in Division I FCS and was under consideration for reattachment to the Southland Conference. On August 25 Abilene Christian's Board of Trustees accepted Southland's invitation to rejoin the Conference effective with the start of the 2013 academic year.

• The men's track and field program has won 32 NCAA National Track and Field Championships: 19 NCAA outdoor and 13 indoor.
• The women's track and field program has won 22 national championships: 12 indoor and 10 outdoor.
• The Wildcats were NAIA national football champions in 1973 and 1977.
• Before the NCAA invalidated its 2007 season, nine ACU football players were included in the LSC's 75th-anniversary list of top players in conference history. The school's 2007 victories were vacated by the NCAA in 2009. The NCAA charged "two assistant football coaches helped a pair of players find an English correspondence class to take, enroll in the same course, allowed them to use the coaches’ school computers for writing papers and paid to mail the assignments." The school had scored more than 40 points in 11 of its 13 games and more than 50 points in 7 games and 70 or more points in two games including a 73-76 three overtime loss to Chadron State in the second round of the NCAA playoffs.
• In 2008, the Wildcats "set a record for points in an NCAA (football) playoff game, beating West Texas A&M 93-68 in the second round of the Division II playoffs."
• Ove Johansson kicked the longest field goal in college football history (69 yards) in 1976, 6 yards longer than the current NFL record. As of 2009 it remains the longest field goal over kicked in any level of football competition and is an unbroken world record.
• Olympic athletes from ACU include Bobby Morrow, three-time 1956 gold medal winner; Earl Young, 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the 4x400 relay; Billy Olson, who made the 1980 and 1988 U.S. teams but did not compete in 1980 due to President Carter's decision to boycott the Games; Yolande Straughn, who competed in 1988 for Barbados; and *James Browne, 1988 competitor for Antigua.
• ESPN and NFL Network analyst and author Sean Adams is a former NCAA All-American athlete for ACU.