History
The University of Maryland, College Park was established in 1856 as Maryland Agricultural College. Baseball and football were played on the campus as early as the Civil War era. It was renamed Maryland State College in 1916, and in 1920, merged with the state's professional schools in Baltimore to become the University of Maryland. Between 1921 and 1953, the university was a member of the Southern Conference.
Longstanding tensions within the Southern Conference culminated in 1951, when it passed a ban on participation in bowl games midway through the football season. At the end of the regular season, both Maryland and Clemson were invited and accepted invitations to postseason bowl games. The Southern Conference sanctioned the two schools with a one-year probation in which they could not schedule any football games against conference opponents. On May 8, 1953, Maryland became a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) when it and six other schools voted to split from the Southern Conference.
The school's sports teams are referred to as the Terrapins, and the university mascot is a diamondback terrapin named Testudo. The school's athletic colors are red, white, black, and gold, derived from the colors of the state flag. The university currently sponsors varsity athletic teams in 20 men's and women's sports, which compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I level. As of December 2010, Maryland's athletic teams have been awarded 38 national championships by the NCAA, USILA, AIAW, and NCA.
Read more about this topic: Maryland Terrapins
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