The Claremont Coyotes' Home
| The News: |
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News 2/14/08: The Coyotes played their first home game of the 2008 season against La Sierra. More than 50 people showed up to support the coyotes and heckle La Sierra.
The games were closer than the coyotes would have liked but the team celebrated the "W" all the same. Click HERE to see videos taken from the game and click HERE to see pictures of the game.
| Who we are: |
| The Claremont Colleges are a grouping of small institutions in Southern California including undergraduate schools Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona and Scripps (a women's college), and Claremont Graduate University. Before the Fall 2006 semester, Claremont Colleges had two separate teams, Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd. Both were strong teams, Pomona-Pitzer finishing 17th at the National competition in 2006. |
| The two teams were combined for the 2007 season and have become the Claremont Coyotes. The team is currently coached by senior Drew Lowell-Brit and resident old-guy Atchi Shimomura. | What we do: |
| We compete at the Division II NIRSA Club level, including the National Tournament to be held in San Antonio, TX in April 2008. This year we are competing in the SCCVL North, a Division I league including USC, UCLA, Loyola Marymount and UCSB. | Team History: The Following is True |
| The Claremont Men’s Volleyball Club was founded in 1912 by a group of radical Jesuit Monks who, having settled down in the lazy fertile crescent of the Pomona Valley, grew restless and yearned for competitive interscholastic sports. In April of that year (the specific date was never mentioned in any of the Sacred Scrolls), they acquired a 300 hundred acre plot then owned by the Chumash Indians for $30 American, 10 Bibles, a 3rd round draft pick, and “future considerations.” On that plot near what is now famous Route 66, they built a vaulted cathedral with seating (now installed in the small Raines Gym) that could be retracted (difficulty) to reveal a hardwood volleyball court – the first of its kind outside of Europe. |
| In their first season (1914) the squad, then known as the “Beards,” finished a dismal 0-11 losing every one of its matches to Pomona Baptist, the only other team in North America. At the conclusion of the season, both teams were drafted into the armed service and shipped off to the Rhineland to fight those dastardly Prussians. The team’s captain, Phinaeus J. Rockefeller, was awarded the Silver Star for “gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States.” Tragically, every other member of the Beards was killed in action from trench foot, wounds sustained in battle, and gonorrhea. Upon his return, stricken with sadness and survivor’s guilt, Rockefeller swore to honor his fallen comrades by disbanding the club they had started together. |
| On March 1, 1916, he gathered all of their volleyball gear (athletic smocks, sweatbands, sandals, etc.), placed it into a locked steel box, and buried it under the court were they had so valiantly displayed sportsmanship in the face of brutal defeat after brutal defeat. All records had been lost until this very crate was unearthed in 1987 during the early phases of construction of the Pomona College Raines Center. At the bequest of Pomona College’s President, it was presented to the foremost volleyball authority in Claremont, Atsushi Shimomura. Upon breaking the sacred seal and lifting the lid, Atsushi was ensnarled in a cloud of dust, cobwebs, bats, and a bunch of other gross crap. However, upon donning one of these ancient smocks, he was endowed forever with incredible agility, speed, and hand-eye coordination, which he still possesses to this day. Sadly, before he could share this powerful gift with his friends, the crate was seized by the IRS and donated to the Smithsonian where it now languishes in an underground vault. |
| Yet, moved by the great power endowed to him, Atsushi reformed the Claremont Men’s Volleyball Club later that year and has been a central figure in the program ever since. Though the modern day incarnation has neither the official religious affiliation, nor the mascot of its predecessor, these Claremont Coyotes honor their founders with displays of great athletic ability and fortitude each week. This year, the squad will attempt to extend its undefeated streak to 12 consecutive years and defend its national title. With a complimentary balance of height, speed, power, and intellect, the 2007 Claremont Men’s Volleyball Team will undoubtedly live up to its lofty expectations. |
| -By Carter Rubin (Team Historian/Defensive Specialist) |
