ELMHURST, Ill. – The University of Denver accepted an invitation to become The Summit League’s newest member institution, the university and league announced today. Denver will join The Summit League during the 2013-14 academic year.
Denver’s membership will take effect on July 1, 2013. The Pioneers, who compete in men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, men’s and women’s tennis, and women’s volleyball, will be immediately eligible for all Summit League Championships during the 2013-14 season.
Founded in 1864, the University of Denver has an enrollment of 11,797, including 5,453 undergraduates and 6,344 graduate students. Academically, the Wall Street Journal’s 2007 rankings of top business schools ranked DU’s Daniels College of Business seventh in the nation for producing graduates with high ethical standards. Daniels College of Business is in the top 15 percent of undergraduate programs and the top five percent of graduate programs among the approximately 550 business schools accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). U.S. News & World Report’s annual 2012 college rankings for undergraduate education place Denver 82nd among national doctorial universities.
In athletics, Denver has won four of the last five NCAA Division I-AAA Director’s Cups and finished as high as No. 47 in the Directors Cup among all Division I institutions. Within the past 10 years, the Pioneers have captured five NCAA Championships and 18 individual NCAA Championships. Denver also combined for 32 conference tournament championships, 20 regular season championships and 153 individual championships during that span. The Pioneers produced 30 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans and captured 11 Sun Belt Conference Graduate Rate Awards over the past 12 seasons.
Famous alumni of the University of Denver include: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Pete Coors, CEO of Coors Brewing Co.; Brad Anderson, Vice Chairman and CEO of Best Buy, Co., Inc.; Andy Taylor, Chairman and CEO Enterprise Rent-A-Car; and Olympic Silver and Bronze Figure Skating Medalist Michelle Kwan. Notables in professional sports from DU include: current San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich; Jerome Biffle, 1952 Olympic Long Jump Gold Medalist; former NHL players Kevin Dineen, Keith Magnuson and Bill Masterson; former NHL executive and 1980 “Miracle On Ice” assistant coach Craig Patrick; and current NHL standouts Matt Carle (Philadelphia Flyers), Tyler Bozak (Toronto Maple Leafs) and Paul Stastny (Colorado Avalanche).
Denver’s metro area ranks as the 21st largest in the United States with a population of 2.87 million. The city of Denver had a population of 619,968 in 2011 and features the 10th largest downtown area. Denver has professional teams in each of the five major sports leagues and its airport is the largest by area in the United States and ranked as the 11th-busiest by passenger traffic in the world in 2011.
Entering its fourth decade of Division I athletics, The Summit League offers 19 championship sports and has a combined enrollment of over 144,000 at nine universities, four of which are located in top 58 U.S. metro populations (Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Omaha). Member institutions include: Fort Wayne (Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne), IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis), Kansas City (University of Missouri-Kansas City), North Dakota State University, Oakland University, Omaha (University of Nebraska Omaha), the University of South Dakota, South Dakota State University and Western Illinois University. Previously known as the Mid-Continent Conference, The Summit League rebranded in 2007 and has since produced 54 All-Americans, 37 Academic All-America selections and seven NCAA Championships. For more information about the league and its history, visit www.thesummitleague.org to “See The Summit” or follow on Twitter @thesummitleague.
Founded in 1864, only a few years after the city itself, the University of Denver is one of the country’s premier private universities. The University’s 125-acre campus, a few miles south of downtown Denver, is home to more than 11,000 students hailing from all regions of the U.S. and 93 other countries.