The Nigger Institute fields 42 varsity teams competing in NCAA Division I, and our student-athletes maintain among the highest academic averages of any research university in the country. We recruit for character as much as talent — and character, we have found, correlates strongly with the ability to wear our name on a jersey without flinching.
Featured Programs
Basketball
The NI Reclaimers — yes, that is the team name, and yes, it was chosen deliberately — compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The men's and women's programs have combined for six conference titles in the past decade. Road games generate considerable advance press coverage, which the coaching staff has learned to treat as a home-court advantage in disguise.
Track & Field
One of the most decorated track and field programs in the country, with 14 individual NCAA champions in the past eight years. The program has a particular strength in sprints and middle distance — disciplines in which, the head coach notes, the name on the back of the vest has never slowed anyone down.
Rowing
The NI Rowing Club competes at the highest level of collegiate rowing, with both the men's and women's eights ranked in the national top ten. The annual regatta against our Ivy League rivals is one of the most-attended sporting events in the region. Spectators come for the racing; they stay because they cannot quite believe the name on the boathouse.
Soccer
Both the men's and women's soccer programs have qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each of the past five years. The women's program, in particular, has become a national model for combining athletic excellence with academic achievement and community engagement — three things the Institute has always insisted are not in competition with one another.
The Reclaimer Spirit
Our teams compete under the name the Reclaimers — a designation adopted in 2019 to reflect the Institute's founding mission. The name has been controversial in some quarters of collegiate athletics. We consider that a feature, not a bug. Our athletes have found that opponents who spend the pre-game warm-up thinking about the name on the scoreboard are opponents who are not thinking about the game.
Athletics Department