History
Mack Rhoades was hired as athletic director in 2005. That year, the men's basketball team, under head coach Keith Dambrot, won their first ever Division I post-season game by defeating Temple in the NIT, led by first team All-MAC performer Romeo Travis (former teammate of LeBron James in high school) and also won the most games in a season, 23. The football team won their very first MAC championship giving them a chance to play in the Motor City Bowl, Akron's first Division I bowl game appearance where they lost to the University of Memphis. That same year the women's cross country team and the men's soccer team also won the MAC championship in their respective sports. The men's soccer team was also the first team in the history of Akron sports to have a #1 rating in the nation.
Rhoades left Akron in 2009, taking the Athletic Director position at the University of Houston.
The 1978 men's archery team, led by 3-time national individual college champion Richard Bednar and hall-of-fame coach Bill Bednar, was the first team in UA history to win a national collegiate team championship.
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“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)