Kent State Golden Flashes
| Kent State Golden Flashes | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| University | Kent State University |
| Conference | Mid-American Conference |
| NCAA | Division I (Bowl Subdivision) |
| Athletic director | Joel Nielsen |
| Location | Kent, Ohio |
| Varsity teams | 16 (7 men's, 9 women's) |
| Football stadium | Dix Stadium |
| Basketball arena | Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center |
| Baseball stadium | Schoonover Stadium |
| Mascot | Flash the Golden Eagle |
| Nickname | Golden Flashes |
| Fight song | "Fight on for KSU" |
| Colors | Navy Blue and Gold |
| Website | kentstatesports |
The intercollegiate athletic teams at Kent State University are known as the Golden Flashes or simply as the Flashes. The university fields sixteen varsity athletic teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level with football competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Kent State is a full member of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and has been part of the MAC East division since it was created in 1998. Official school colors are Kent State Blue and Kent State Gold. Joel Nielsen is athletic director, a position he has held since May 1, 2010.
Athletic events were held during the very first semester at Kent State in late 1913, with several intramural teams for female students and a limited number of opportunities for male students. Early men's athletic events, in basketball and baseball, were played against local high school, church, and company teams. The first intercollegiate athletic event, a men's basketball game, was held in January 1915 and the baseball team held their first intercollegiate game later that year. A dedicated athletic field was built around 1920 and the school's first gymnasium opened in 1925. Football also debuted as a sport in 1920, followed by wrestling, men's tennis, men's gymnastics, and men's swimming. From 1932–1951, Kent State competed as a member of the Ohio Athletic Conference before joining the Mid-American Conference in 1951. The school's first permanent football stadium and a new basketball gym opened in 1950.
Although women's intramural athletics had been part of the university since it was first established, the first women's intercollegiate athletic team was not founded until 1959 when the women's gymnastics team was established, the first women's collegiate gymnastics team in the U.S. Additional women's sports, including swimming, field hockey, basketball, and volleyball, were added in the mid-1970s following the passage and implementation of Title IX. Budget constraints and other factors led to the university dropping swimming, tennis, ice hockey, and men's soccer during the 1980s and 1990s, with ice hockey becoming a club-level sport in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) Division I as part of the Great Lakes Collegiate Hockey League (GLCHL). The most recent changes occurred in the late 1990s when women's golf and women's soccer were added as varsity sports. Plans were announced in March 2016 to add a women's lacrosse program for the 2018–19 season.
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