History

The first hint of sporting events is a photo in the inaugural 1927 edition of The Biolan in which a group of students form a dog pile in the middle of a vacant lot. The photo is likely from the Junior-Senior football game at the Student Picnic. The seniors won the game, while the junior girls took the prize in the baseball game.

The 1930 Biolan features the school’s first-ever competitive basketball team. The athletes joined a city league and used courts at the Y.M.C.A. and Emmanuel Presbyterian Church.

Though the team only lost two games during the season, the yearbook notes that “B.I. is not noted for its athletics, and is not striving to be known as such.”

When the Depression hit, Biola discontinued its yearbook, and there is little documentation of the school’s athletic program during the 1930s. But the 1938 Biolan shows pictures of eight uniformed basketball players. They wore Biola colors – red and blue at the time – and short shorts.

1940s

Football games, which occurred just once a year during the early years, were played on opponents’ fields. Basketball games, which formed the core of the school’s competition, occurred every Friday night during the ‘40s on opponents’ courts.

Issues of The Chimes from the 1940s describes a typical weekend schedule – students attended Saturday night prayer meetings and listened to what were called “balcony broadcasts.” These ended in time for basketball games.

Occasionally, the Associated Student Council hosted special banquets in Biola’s parlors after the basketball games, but as The Chimes cautioned, they ended before 10:30 p.m., which was “lights out” time for students.

The names of basketball opponents included “The Swedes.” By the time a more formal Southern California Christian College Conference emerged, the Biola basketball team was playing contenders like The Russians, a crew from the Young Russian Christian Association. Before the Eagle became the official mascot around 1949, the teams called themselves the “red and white” or the “reds.”

School Spirit

In addition to developing track, baseball and girls’ basketball during the 1940s, Biola also saw a rise in school spirit. A co-ed group of “yell leaders” led to stunt performing “song leaders” who carried pom-poms and a megaphone and wore coordinating outfits.

The pep band helped stir up the crowd during well-attended rallies before the basketball games.

1950s

Changes for the athletic program came when the Bible institute finally became Biola College in 1952. Sports grew in popularity, and by 1957, the school hired its first athletic director – Talbot student Clyde Cook. Before the athletic director position was created, the dean of students and the dean of men split the duties of administering the program. Once Cook took on the role, he would have the duty of coaching not one, but every men’s sport at the college.

Upon the hiring, The Chimes noted that the administration had seen how sports programs brought big-time publicity to small, private schools.

Debating the presence of athletics at a Bible college

Concerns that sports would detract from students’ theological studies and ministry had kept a formal athletic program at bay. But as competition grew more prominent at the institute, many students began to worry about what might be next.

When, in 1953, rumors started flying about tackle football coming to the Institute, a Chimes editorial dismissed them, and the entire idea that sports should have a place in a Bible school.

The author describes the expenses of bringing a football program to the school. He estimates start-up costs to be $20,000, a figure that was astronomical at the time, especially considering students did not have to pay tuition during Biola’s early years.

Then he cites scandals at Long Beach City College in which star athletes skipped classes but still earned high grades in anticipation of their return to the field the next season.

He sums up his point with one sentence: “Biola is not in the football business, but in the sacred and all important business of turning out missionaries to labor in the harvest fields of the world.”

But the opinion was not universal.

In another 1953 Chimes article, columnist Roy Zuck questions whether or not sports belong at a Bible institute. He describes one Biolan cheering for a basketball team from the sidelines and another quietly studying his Bible. Isn’t the fan wasting their time, he asked, on something that will mean nothing in an eternal sense?

Then he launches into an argument in favor of athletics, arguing that God wants Christians to be well-rounded – and physically fit.

“His purpose is not to make strait-laced fuddy-duddies of his children by not allowing them to participate in secular activities,” Zuck raves. “We talk about winning the lost to Christ, but we’ll fail to do it if we stand off like hermits to the extent where we might as well be in another world.”

Even for Zuck, though, the tension prevailed.

“In all that we do we must be careful to give Christ all the honor, glory and pre-eminence,” he wrote. “We are not responsible to turn out athletes but to train men for God’s service.”

1960s

By the time Biola joined the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics in 1962, the face of the sports program had changed significantly from its beginnings. Both men’s and women’s basketball were growing in notoriety; baseball and track were also expanding.

Current Structure

In 45-plus years in the NAIA, Biola’s athletic program has evolved into a fully-staffed, professional operation. All-American awards and regional titles are in the record books, and scholarships and recruiting trips are common.