Carnegie Mellon University Athletics: A Legacy of Innovation and Competition
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has a rich history that extends beyond its academic achievements into the realm of athletics. Founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools, the institution has evolved through various stages, ultimately becoming Carnegie Mellon University in 1967. Throughout its history, CMU has maintained a commitment to both intellectual and physical pursuits, with its athletic programs reflecting the university's core values of innovation, dedication, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Carnegie Mellon competes in NCAA Division III athletics as a founding member of the University Athletic Association.
The Early Years: Laying the Foundation (1900-1930s)
Andrew Carnegie's vision for the Carnegie Technical Schools was to provide vocational training for the working class. However, the institution quickly expanded its scope, and athletics soon became an integral part of student life. The Carnegie Technical Schools were founded in 1900 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who wrote "My heart is in the work", when he donated the funds to create the institution.
The Carnegie Tech Tartan football team was founded ahead of the 1906 football season, where they competed as independents. In their first year of football, the Tartans claimed a modest record of 2-3-2. The Carnegie Tech football program continued to have an unconvincing start, as they accumulated a 4-15 record across the 1907 and 1908 seasons. This negative trend reversed, however, in 1909 as the Tartans posted their first ever winning record by finishing 5-3-1 under first year head coach Edwin N.
By the 1920s, Carnegie Tech had become a national contender and regional powerhouse, posting a record of 34-20-4 in the decade. During this era, Carnegie Tech participated in the Pittsburgh City Title Series, a three-way rivalry with their Pittsburgh neighbors the Pitt Panthers and Duquesne Dukes.
A National Force: The Golden Era of Carnegie Tech Football (1930s)
In the 1930s, Carnegie Tech (as it was known then) was among the top college football programs in the country. In 1938 and 1939, the team achieved national rankings in the AP poll. The most memorable game between Carnegie and Pitt came in 1938, when the number 19 ranked Tartans upset the number 1 ranked Panthers in front of 60,000 fans, breaking Pitt's 22-game win streak and spoiling their hopes for an unbeaten 1938 campaign. Carnegie Tech Head Coach Bill Kern was remarkably pessimistic before the game, saying, "They're too strong for us. However, if our boys are up and Pitt is down we'll give them a battle, not enough of a battle to win but enough to hold the score down. I feel that our backs are almost as good as theirs but their big advantage lies in the line." Pitt Head coach Jock Sutherland did not share Kern's confidence in a Pitt victory, commenting, "Tech has us in a good spot for them. They'll be tremendously tough. The Tech team will be up for this game, while our boys will suffer a natural letdown from the hard Fordham game [the previous week]. I figure this game to be every bit as tough as Fordham. Our team is not at its best. The Panthers earned their revenge the following season however, as they defeated the Carnegie Tech Tartans 6-0 in front of a ruckus crowd of 55,000 at Pitt Stadium. Carnegie Tech's loss to the Panthers came as a part of a 5 game win streak that closed out their 1939 campaign. Despite starting with a perfect record that year, the Tartans lost out the back end of their season, including losses to rivals Notre Dame and Duquesne.
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While matchups between Pitt and Carnegie Tech were typically (but not always) showcased by more offense, the games between Duquesne and the Tartans were almost always defensive battles. Ultimately, the Dukes were forced to play a more supporting role in the Pittsburgh City Title Series, in large part due to their location in the city. Duquesne University is located in the Bluff, on the western side of Pittsburgh, whereas the University of Pittsburgh is located in Oakland, and Carnegie Tech/Carnegie Mellon is located in the adjacent Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
Transition and Transformation: Navigating the Mid-Century (1940s-1970s)
The team lost 26 straight games from 1942 through 1948 (the 1944 and 1945 seasons were cancelled due to World War II). In the last game of the 1948 season, the team beat Grove City, 7-0, on a 51-yard touchdown run by freshman halfback John Luchok. The team improved over the next six years, culminating in the first undefeated season in school history in 1954.
In 1963, Carnegie Tech hired former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Joe Gasparella as their head coach. Despite Gasparella's professional pedigree, the Tartans struggled under his leadership, only posting three winning seasons in the twelve years he was head coach. Despite the unremarkable nature of Gasparella's record on the gridiron, his tenure as head coach was anything but. The Gasparella era was one that was marked by tremendous change and upheaval for the Tartans. In 1973, when the NCAA split up sports into three divisions, Carnegie Mellon moved with the rest of the PAC into Division III of college football.
Division III Dominance: The Chuck Klausing Era (1970s-1980s)
Following Gasparella's departure, Carnegie Mellon hired Indiana University head coach Chuck Klausing. Klausing coached the Tartans for nine seasons and never posted a losing record. Under Klausing, the Tartans were a dominant powerhouse in the northeast. In just his second season as Carnegie Mellon's head coach, Klausing lead the Tartans to their first ever PAC football championship in 1977. Klausing followed that up with a three-peat, winning PAC championships in 1978 and 1979. The 1978 and 1979 seasons also featured division III playoff berths, where the Tartans reached the semifinal rounds in both years. After the Carnegie Mellon's three-peat, the Klausing-lead Tartans won three more conference championships in 1981, 1983, and 1985 and made two more Division III playoff appearances.
Continued Success: The Rich Lackner Era (1980s-2022)
Following the departure of Klausing, the Tartans promoted assistant coach Rich Lackner to head coach. A Pittsburgh native, Lackner played linebacker for the Tartans from 1975-78. While at Carnegie Mellon, Lackner earned all-PAC honors three times, academic all-American honors twice, and was named the 1976 Presidents' Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year. In 1986, Lackner was officially named head coach. Under Lackner's leadership, the Tartans claimed nine conference championships and three Division III playoff berths. In 1990, the Tartans moved to the University Athletic Association, where Carnegie Mellon rose to newfound prominence. The Tartans won conference championships seven out of their first eight seasons in the UAA, including five straight from 1993-97. In 2006, the Lackner-lead Tartans posted an 11-1 season, the most wins in school history and their sixth appearance in the NCAA playoffs. In 2015, runningback Sam Benger lead all of college football with 2,092 yards on the season. Second place was 504 yards behind him. He was just the twenty-first player in Division 3 football history to exceed 2,000 yards. In 2019, Carnegie Mellon linebacker and long snapper Brian Khoury was signed to the DC Defenders of the XFL. In 2014, the Tartans moved back to the PAC, but failed to replicate the same successful start that they had in the UAA, not winning a conference championship until 2021.
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Recent Developments: New Leadership and Continued Excellence (2022-Present)
In 2022, Carnegie Mellon announced that they would be hiring Columbia quarterbacks coach Ryan Larsen as their next head coach. That 2022 Tartans team boasted the longest win streak in college football with eighteen consecutive wins. Having been disqualified from the playoffs in 2021 due to a Covid-19 outbreak, Carnegie Mellon followed up their seven game win streak at the conclusion of the 2021 season with a perfect 2022 season. The 2023 team posted a similarly impressive record of 10-1. Despite a regular season record of 9-1, the Tartans were not given a bid to the division III playoff. They were, however, selected to compete in a bowl game against the SUNY Brockport Golden Eagles in a game which was touted as being one between two of the best teams not selected for the playoffs that year. In 2024, like in 2023, the Tartans suffered only one regular season loss, again to Grove City. However, unlike 2023, the Tartans earned an at-large bid to the Division 3 playoffs.
Rivalries and Traditions
Currently, the Tartans' fiercest rivalry is with the Case Western Reserve University Spartans. The winner of the game is awarded the Academic Bowl Trophy. Predating the Academic Bowl trophy name, Carnegie Tech first played Case Tech in 1907 and Western Reserve in 1909, meeting up multiple times over the next few decades. Upon the merger of Case Tech and Western Reserve, the match-up resumed in 1970. It was not until 1986 when the Academic Bowl was officially created.
The Carnegie Mellon band is named the Kiltie Band, due to the fact that the entire band wears kilts while performing. The band draws inspiration from the critically acclaimed 1975 film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. During every home game, the families of the Tartan football players set up a tailgate on the rooftop of the East Campus Garage, which overlooks the football field. The Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity, which many Carnegie Mellon football players are members of, also sets up a tailgate on the rooftop of the East Campus garage.
A Holistic Approach to Excellence
Carnegie Mellon's commitment to athletics extends beyond the playing field. The university recognizes the importance of a holistic approach to education, where athletic participation complements academic pursuits. This philosophy is reflected in the university's emphasis on academic achievement among its athletes and the integration of athletics into the broader campus community.
The Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences is the university's liberal arts college and emphasizes the study of the human condition through rigorous analysis and technology. Departments include English, History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Psychology, Social and Decision Sciences, and Statistics as well as an Institute for Politics and Strategy. The H. John Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy offers top-ranked master's degrees in Public Policy and Management, Health Care Policy and Management, Medical Management, Public Management, Information Systems and Management, Information Technology, and Information Security Policy and Management. The Heinz College also runs master's programs in Arts Management and Entertainment Industry Management with the College of Fine Arts. Heinz College consists of the School of Information Systems & Management and the School of Public Policy & Management. The Mellon College of Science has four departments: Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematical Sciences, and Physics. The college is expanding efforts in neuroscience, green chemistry, bioinformatics, computational biology, nanotechnology, computational finance, cosmology, sensor research, and biological physics. The School of Computer Science: Carnegie Mellon helped define, and continually redefines, the field of computer science. The School of Computer Science is recognized internationally as one of the top schools for computer science and has been consistently ranked the best in the country. The School of Computer Science includes seven departments: the Computer Science Department, Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department, Robotics Institute, Machine Learning Department, the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, the Language Technologies Institute, and the Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D). The Tepper School of Business (formerly the Graduate School of Industrial Administration) offers undergraduate programs in Business Administration and Economics (the latter jointly with the Dietrich College), master's degrees in Business Administration (MBA), Product Management (MSPM) and joint degrees in Computational Finance (MSCF) with the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Mellon College of Science, the Heinz College, and the School of Computer Science. In addition, joint degrees are offered with Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Heinz College. The Tepper School also offers doctoral degrees in several areas and presents a number of executive education programs. Following a $67 million donation from alumnus David A. Tepper in 2013, the university expanded the undergraduate business program and named the school after him.
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In addition to research and academic institutions, the university hosts several other educationally driven programs. The Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences, a state-funded summer program that aims to foster interest in science amongst gifted high school students is run on campus every summer. The university also runs Carnegie Mellon Pre-College, a six-week residential program for rising juniors and seniors in high school and the Summer Academy for Math and Science (SAMS), a free-of-charge STEM immersion program for students from underrepresented backgrounds. The Cyert Center for Early Education is a child care center for Carnegie Mellon faculty and staff, as well as an observational setting for students in child development courses. Carnegie Mellon also runs the Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) Network to provide university-wide arts and technology education to students from every college. IDeATe allows students to take minors or concentrations in Animation and Special Effects, Entrepreneurship for Creative Industries, Game Design, Intelligent Environments, Learning Media, Media Design, Physical Computing, and Sound Design. IDeATe will also offer graduate master's degrees in Emerging Media, Game Design, Integrative Innovation for Products and Services, Computational Data Science, Urban Design, and Production Technology and Management. IDeATe also manages the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in conjunction with the School of Computer Science and the College of Fine Arts. Each master's degree program has an option to study in the CMU Integrative Media Program (IMP) at Steiner Studios in New York City.
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