page_title: California Lutheran University
section_title: Kingsmen football
hierarchical_section_title: California Lutheran University / Athletics / Kingsmen football
caption_attribution_description: English: Kingsmen football team at Memorial Field (formerly Mt Clef Field), 2010.
context_page_description: California Lutheran University is a private liberal arts university in Thousand Oaks, California. It was founded in 1959 and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but is nonsectarian. It opened in 1960 as California Lutheran College and was California's first four-year liberal arts college and the first four-year private college in Ventura County. It changed its name to California Lutheran University on January 1, 1986.
  It is located on a 290-acre campus, 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles. It offers degrees at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels, as well as post-master's and post-bachelor's certificates. CLU offers 36 majors and 34 minors. The university is based in Thousand Oaks, with additional locations in Woodland Hills, Westlake Village, Oxnard, Santa Maria, and Berkeley.
  Notable speakers at CLU have included U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush. CLU hosted the preseason training camp for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League for 27 years and serves as the year-round training site for the Los Angeles Rams.
context_section_description: The football team won the NAIA National Championship in 1971, its only national championship to date. Head coach Robert Shoup was named NAIA Coach of the Year that season. He led the Kingsmen to 13 NAIA District 3 Championships and the 5 playoffs in his 17 years as coach. The current head coach is Ben McEnroe.
  CLU joined the NCAA in 1991 and began playing at the Division II level as a member of the Western Football Conference. As a SCIAC member, the Kingsmen won the conference championship in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Running back Brian Stuart received the Player of the Year award in 2009. The team has a SCIAC rivalry with the Redlands Bulldogs where the teams battle each other annually for the trophy known as the Smudge Pot, a perpetual trophy introduced to the rivalry in 2012.
  Notable players have included Brian Kelley and Sam Cvijanovich, who were drafted after the 1971 NAIA Championship win. Other notable players include Hank Bauer, who retired from the San Diego Chargers in 1982, and Jerry Palmquist who played for the Denver Broncos. Gary Loyd was drafted by the New Orleans Saints, William “Robbie” Robinson by the Pittsburgh Steelers, Gary Hamm by the Toronto Argonauts, Charlie McShane by the Seattle Seahawks, and Russ Jensen by the Los Angeles Express. Other notable football players and coaches of CLU include Tom Herman, Rod Marinelli, Eric Rogers, Cory Undlin, Phil Frye, and Dave Aranda. Ralph Miller became a founding member of the National Football League Players Association and has played for the New Orleans Saints, Houston Oilers, Philadelphia Eagles, San Diego Chargers, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers.
caption: Kingsmen at the Memorial Field (formerly Mt Clef Field), 2010
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "720", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "540"}