Historical Glimpse: St. Thomas

The Beginning

July 15, 2020. It marked the official beginning of something special in St. Paul, Minn. The University of St. Thomas found out that it would become the 10th member of The Summit League and participate in 18 sponsored sports. The NCAA Division I Council elected to provide the Tommies with an unprecedented waiver to make the jump from Division III to Division I and join the League prior to the 2021-22 academic year becoming just the second DI member in the state of Minnesota. 

After receiving the special exemption, UST became the first program in NCAA history to make that historic jump in all sports. The perennial DIII power had combined for more than 400 regular and postseason championships during its tenure in the MIAC (Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference). The department also captured 15 NCAA team championships.

Those 15 NCAA team championships have all come since 1982, while 21 other squads posted top-five national finishes for the Tommies. Of the NCAA's more than 1,000 institutions, St. Thomas is the only one to have secured at least one NCAA team championship in baseball, softball, volleyball and men's and women's basketball.

Blast to the Past

From 1890 to 1902, the Tommies got their start in intramural and informal intercollegiate sports contests in baseball and football. In 1894, the St. Paul Seminary was established through a gift from James J. Hill and laid the foundation for Tommie athletics. 

St. Thomas would join the newly-formed Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC), and the rest was history and lots of it.

Steve Fritz

In 2019, Steve Fritz announced his retirement as the athletic director, ending his 52-year affiliation as a player, assistant coach, head coach and athletic director. Fritz went 594-246 as the head men's basketball coach, was named the MIAC Coach of the Year 14 times and also scored 1,944 points as a player for the Tommies.

His end as the men's basketball coach ended a stretch of 44 seasons and 1,199 games of his direct involvement as a player from 1967-71, an assistant coach from 1971-80 and head coach from 1980-2011.

His final season on the bench was the 2010-11 season when he guided the Tommies to the program's first national championship.

Fritz is a member of the St. Thomas Athletic Hall of Fame and was named the 2011 National Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

Deb Thometz - Cross Country/Track & Field

At the 1983 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships in Naperville, Ill., Thometz won the 10,000-meter run by over a minute and set the still-standing meet record of 33:50.32. That performance also established an all-time Division III record and to this day, the stands as the best in NCAA Division III only competition. 

Another meet record that still stands nearly 40 years later is her 10,000-meter winning performance at the season's MIAC Outdoor Championships, where she won at 34:22.58.

In cross country, she won the 1981 AIAW (Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) individual title, leading her team to the national crown over Holy Cross, their first national team title in school history. Thometz earned that victory between two runner-up finishes in 1980 and 1982.

In cross country, became the school's first female individual national champion in 1981. 

Thometz was recently inducted into the USTFCCCA NCAA DIII Athlete Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2021.

Joe Sweeney

Joe Sweeney, who holds the record for longest tenured head coach in St. Thomas athletics history, will be entering his 42nd season as St. Thomas' head coach for women's cross country/track and field. Sweeney has guided St. Thomas to 86 MIAC team championships in cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field, including four NCAA Division III team championships (1982, 1984, 1986, 1987). 

Under Sweeney's leadership, the Tommie women's track and field team won its 15th consecutive MIAC outdoor title in 2019 and its 33rd in the last 35 meets held. The Tommies' indoor team won the program's 21st consecutive championship and 33rd in 36 seasons. UST cross country has won 17 of the 39 conference titles contested.

Sweeney was named the 1995 National Coach of the Year in track and field and has been honored as MIAC Coach of the Year several times, most recently in 2020.

Additionally, Sweeney won his 86th MIAC team championship in indoor and outdoor track and field, which is the most among all Division III women's sport coaches.

1984 Men's and Women's Cross Country National Titles

The 1984 Tommie men's and women's cross country teams celebrated their sweeps of the NCAA Division III team championships on the same day in Ohio. Current St. Thomas women's head coach Joe Sweeney saw his team edge favored UW-La Crosse, while current Tommies men's cross country head coach Pete Wareham placed third in the men's race to lead St. Thomas over runner-up North Central (Ill.).

1991 Women's Basketball Captures Division III National Title

The Tommies won the NCAA Division III national championship under then head coach Ted Riverso. That was the first of seven Final Four trips for St. Thomas, which also placed third nationally in 1995, 1996, 2000, 2012, 2017 and 2019.

“Leapin” Leonard Jones

“Leapin” Leonard Jones was a 23-time conference champion, 19-time All-American, nine-time NCAA champion and a provisional qualifier for the 1992 Olympic Trials. Jones won five NCAA crowns in the long jump and two titles each in the high jump and triple jump while starring for the St. Thomas men's track and field team from 1991-94. He broke nine schools records and still holds seven conference marks. No male Division III student-athlete has won more individual NCAA championships than Jones with nine, and his seven career NCAA indoor titles remain a D-III record.

He won an NCAA record three national crowns at the 1994 national indoor championships with winning performances in the high, long, and triple jumps.

Jones was recognized for his stellar career by St. Thomas in 2002 with his induction into the Tommie Athletics Hall of Fame. Ten years later in 2012, the USTFCCCA inducted Jones into the Division III Track & Field Athlete Hall of Fame.

1997 Women's Track and Field 4x100 Relay - NCAA Championships

In 1997, St. Thomas captured the women's 4x100-meter relay crown at Division III NCAA Championships, which was the first relay win by any Minnesota women's team. The Tommies had either a men's or women's relay team advance into the finals at nationals for 33 years in a row until 2015.

2001 NCAA Division III Baseball National Champs

After national runner-up finishes in 1999 and 2000, the 2001 St. Thomas baseball team put it all together and won the NCAA Division III championship.

2004 and 2005 NCAA Division III Softball National Champs

Led by two-time Hall of Fame coach John Tschida, the Tommies won back-to-back NCAA titles in 2004 and 2005.

2005 Women's Track and Field NCAA Division III Sweeps Long Jump Titles

In 2005, the Tommies pulled off a rare sweep of the NCAA indoor and outdoor long jump title with different student-athletes. Kristal Grigsby won the indoor title, and teammate Andretta Colley took the outdoor championship.

Grigsby came back to win the 2006 outdoor long jump crown and finish as a three-time NCAA champion.

2009 NCAA Division III Baseball National Champs

Senior Dan Leslie's one-out walk-off single in the 12th inning gave St. Thomas a 3-2 victory over Wooster (Ohio) that let the Tommies take the 2009 Division III College World Series baseball championship. Coach Dennis Denning's Tommies (41-13) won six NCAA playoff elimination games at regionals and nationals to win the program's second national championship.

2012 NCAA Division III Volleyball National Champs

The 2012 season was a historic season as the Tommies' volleyball squad won its final 35 matches and claimed the NCAA Division III title in Holland, Mich. In the 2012 national semifinals, the Tommies outlasted Elmhurst, 25-22, 25-23, 26-24 and, one day later, they made conference history with the championship win in Michigan. The Tommies trailed Calvin 2-0 in the championship match but rallied to post a 3-2 win and cap a 40-1 season.

2016 NCAA Division III Men's Basketball National Champs

St. Thomas took down previously undefeated Benedictine University 82-76 to win its second NCAA Division III men's basketball national championship in six years. The Tommies cut down the nets thanks to stellar performances by senior forwards Ryan Saarela and Taylor Montero, who combined for 53 points and 21 rebounds.

2016 Men's Soccer reaches NCAA Division III Final Four

The Tommies won the program's first solo MIAC title for the first time since 1991 with a conference mark of 7-1-2 and later captured the conference playoff tournament crown to receive an automatic berth into the NCAA playoff tournament. St. Thomas then posted victories over St. Scholastica, Luther, Benedictine (Ill.) and Redlands, including three comeback wins in overtime, They advanced to the Division III Final Four for the first time in program history.

Emma Paulson

In 2016, Emma Paulson won three NCAA Division III individual titles in swimming, where she was named the DIII Most Outstanding Women's Swimmer. She captured titles in the 50 free (22.77), 100 back (54.43) and the 200 back (1:56.33). Her three individual titles on one championship meet tied for the fifth most by a Division III female swimmer and was UST's first national champion in the pool, female or male. Paulson was named the 2016 MIAC Women's Swimmer of the Year and 

Phil Esten named Director of Athletics at University of St. Thomas in 2019

In 2019, the University of St. Thomas annouced Phil Esten as the new vice president and director of athletics. Esten, a 1995 alumnus who played baseball for the NCAA Division III Tommies, returned to lead a St. Thomas program that excelled regionally and nationally in both the classroom and in athletics. St. Thomas ranked in the all-time top 20 of all Division III institutions in CoSIDA Academic All-Americans with 101, including 78 honorees since 2000-01.

2021 NCAA Division III Runner-Ups

The Tommies' baseball squad ended its Division III tenure with a runner-up finish at the national championship. With the finish, it was the Tommies' fourth top-three finish in the last 12 seasons. St. Thomas concluded the 2021 season with an impressive 37-10 record.