page_title: Bowdoin College
section_title: Athletics
hierarchical_section_title: Bowdoin College / Athletics
caption_attribution_description: English: The Hubbard Grandstand, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME; from a 1912 postcard. Designed by Henry Vaughan, the grandstand at Whittier Field was built in 1904.
context_page_description: Bowdoin College is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. At the time Bowdoin was chartered, in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint engineering programs with Columbia, Caltech, Dartmouth College, and The University of Maine.
  The college was a founding member of its athletic conference, the New England Small College Athletic Conference, and the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium, an athletic conference and inter-library exchange with Bates and Colby College. Bowdoin has over 30 varsity teams and the school mascot was selected as a polar bear in 1913 to honor Robert Peary, a Bowdoin alumnus who led the first successful expedition to the North Pole. Between the years 1821 and 1921, Bowdoin operated a medical school called the Medical School of Maine.
  The main Bowdoin campus is located near Casco Bay and the Androscoggin River. In addition to its Brunswick campus, Bowdoin also owns a 118-acre coastal studies center on Orr's Island and a 200-acre scientific field station on Kent Island in the Bay of Fundy.
context_section_description: Bowdoin has thirty varsity sports teams, and competes in the NCAA Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference, which also includes Amherst, Conn College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams. The college's rowing club competes in the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Chase Regatta annually. Bowdoin's mascot is the polar bear, and the school's official color is white. The college also has intercollegiate and club teams in men's and women's fencing, men's and women's rowing, men's rugby, water polo, men's soccer, men's volleyball and men's and women's Ultimate.
  The Bowdoin field hockey team are four-time NCAA Division III National Champions; winning the title in 2007 (defeating Middlebury College), 2008 (defeating Tufts University), 2010 (defeating Messiah College) and 2013 (defeating Salisbury University). Head coach Nicky Pearson has been NESCAC coach of the year a record 8 times after winning 8 NESCAC championships. She has led the polar bears to 9 NCAA Final Four appearances. Pearson has been recognized as the NCAA Division III coach of the year four times.
  In 2011, two Bowdoin players won the NCAA Men's Double title. In 2016, Bowdoin's Men's Tennis won the NCAA college Division III Championship after defeating Emory University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In the spring of 2018, Bowdoin's Men's Tennis won their second-straight NESCAC championship.
  The Bowdoin sailing team competes in the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. In 2014, the women's sailing team was ranked 2nd in the U.S. in a national poll by Sailing World. The women's basketball team are 8-time NESCAC champions, holding a record 7-year streak from 2000-01 to 2006-07.
  
  In 2012, the men's indoor track Distance Medley Relay Team won the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field National Championships.
caption: Hubbard Grandstand in 1912, built in 1904 at Whittier Field
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