Temple Owls Tickets

Details of Temple Owls and the Ticket Luck value

Temple Owls
Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has a prestigious and successful athletic division. The owl is the symbol and mascot for Temple University and has been since its founding in the 1880's. Temple was the first school in the United States to adopt the owl as its symbol. The owl, a nocturnal hunter, was initially adopted as a symbol because Temple University began as a night school for ambitious young people of limited means. Russell Conwell, Temple's founder, encouraged these students with the remark: The owl of the night makes the eagle of the day.

The owl is accepted as a universal symbol for wisdom and knowledge and as such makes an excellent emblem for a center of learning. It must be remembered that the owl was the symbol of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, of arts and skills and even of warfare. Thus it makes an appropriate mascot for the athletic teams. Besides being perceptive and resourceful, quick and courageous, the owl is really a fierce fighter.

Temple University was among the first institutions in the United States to sponsor extracurricular athletic activities for its students. Both the football and basketball programs were inaugurated back in 1894 under the direction of Coach Charles M. Williams. The Temple volleyball team is also a very notable women's sport at the University, led by one of the architects of the game, Bob Bertucci. The Owls are primarily members of the Atlantic Ten Conference (A-10), with the notable exception of football. Since their football team participates in the NCAA's Division I-A, and the A-10 is a Division I-AA league, they must maintain separate league affiliation for that sport. The football program was a member of the Big East Conference until its expulsion after the 2004 season due to a variety of program shortcomings, and has since reached an agreement to play a limited Mid-American Conference schedule in 2005 and 2006 before becoming a completely affiliated football-only member and playing a full 8-game league schedule in 2007. The school's men's basketball team is part of the Big Five, the traditional designation for the rivalries between the Owls and their Philadelphia rivals: Penn, St. Joseph's, Villanova, and La Salle.

The Temple University Intercollegiate Athletic Program is nationally recognized, because one of the University's most famous alums was a worldwide ambassador of goodwill Bill Cosby, he was a track and field and football star in the 1960s. The program is well known because of its outstanding achievements over an extended period of time. On the hardwood, Temple is recognized as having won the first-ever National Collegiate championship in 1938, under Coach James Usilton. That Owls team, which finished with a sparkling 23-2 record, won the inaugural National Invitation Tournament by routing Colorado 60-36 in the championship final. Because the NCAA Tournament was not held until the following year, Temple's NIT championship earned the Owls national title recognition. During the 1950s, the Temple basketball team made two NCAA Final Four appearances (1956, 1958) under legendary Head Coach Harry Litwack.

Temple's baseball program has played twice in College World Series and its coach, veteran James Skip Wilson, has guided the Owls to 901 career wins, including a recent trip to the Atlantic 10 championship. Although women's athletics did not earn intercollegiate status until 1975, nor NCAA sanction until the early 1980s, Temple University established itself as a forerunner early in the century. As early as 1923, the University's women began participating on club sport teams. In fact, that year, Coach Blanche Voorhees guided an Owl basketball team to a perfect 12-0 record and also started a field hockey program. Additional sports for women followed: swimming in 1926, tennis in 1939, fencing in 1946, softball in 1949, lacrosse in 1957, and finally volleyball, track and field and gymnastics in 1975.

By winning 25 straight games, a #15 national ranking and a trip to the NCAA Second Round in 2005, for just the second time in school history, Temple Women's Basketball upholds the reputation of Temple athletics. Women's Basketball coach Dawn Staley was the 2004 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year, has won 74 games in her first four seasons, captured Temple's only two conference championships and earned three postseason bids. In the summer of 2004 she captured her third Olympic Gold Medal, playing for team USA in the 2004 Games in Athens, Greece and was selected as the United States flag bearer for the opening ceremonies.