Ready to head down to the field to cheer on the brown and blue? Here are the terms you need to know to speak the lingo of Tufts sports:
Ashes: The remains of Tufts' legendary mascot, Jumbo, are housed in a peanut butter jar in the athletic department after a 1975 fire at Barnum Hall burned the school's stuffed namesake. Rubbing the jar supposedly brings good luck to hopeful teams.
Brown, Scott: Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was once a sharpshooter on the men's basketball team, earning the nickname "Downtown Scotty Brown." He made 422 of his 853 career field goal attempts and was a captain during the 1980-81 season.
Cousens: The Cousens Gym, home to the men's and women's basketball and volleyball teams, is known for its locker rooms, which are located three stories above the court. It will also adjoin with the Tisch Sports and Fitness Center, currently under construction on College Avenue.
Directors' Cup: The national standings that aggregate Div. III athletic success across all sports. In 2010-11, Tufts ranked 25th out of 324 teams, one year after finishing a school-best sixth.
Ellis Oval: Named after Fred "Fish" Ellis (LA '29), a four-sport star for the Jumbos, Ellis Oval is the school's oldest athletic facility, housing Tufts' football team on Zimman Field, as well as the outdoor track and field meets.
Football: Tufts' football team will undergo a changing of the guard of sorts after a 1-7 season in 2010. Jay Civetti is the new head coach for the Jumbos. The team also lost quarterback Anthony Fucillo (LA '11) and much of their offense to graduation.
Gehling, William "Bill": Tufts' director of athletics since 1999, Gehling is a lifelong Jumbo, co-captaining a 10-2 men's soccer team in 1973 before coaching the women's soccer team for 20 years.
Hockey: The ice hockey team played inconsistently throughout the 2010-11 season and finished 6-16-1. Field hockey, on the other hand, posted a 15-3 record and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. They begin the season ranked No. 6 nationally.
Intramurals: Last winter, Cheryl Milligan, softball coach and director of intramural sports, announced that the winter season would be cancelled due to a lack of indoor space. But undergraduate and graduate students can still participate in a variety of sports in both the fall and spring.
Jumbo: Tufts' beloved elephant mascot. While Lord Jeffs, Ephs, Bantams, Camels and Polar Bears all run rampant in Tufts' athletic conference, none are as sizable as Jumbo.
Kenney, Jaime: The newest member of the Tufts coaching staff, Kenney will take over the reins of the men's tennis team just three months after guiding the women's squad to their first-ever NCAA Quarterfinals, while head coach Kate Bayard was on pregnancy leave.
Lacrosse: Tufts' most successful program in recent years, the men's lacrosse team has gone 38-4 over the past two seasons, splitting two meetings with Salisbury in the NCAA Div. III Championship game in the process.
Malden Forum: Without an on-campus facility, the hockey team travels 20 minutes to this rink in nearby Malden, Mass., for practices and games.
NESCAC: One of Div. III sports' most competitive conferences, the New England Small College Athletic Conference earned three of the top four spots in the Directors' Cup rankings this past year. It also features one of the most historic rivalries in collegiate sports between Amherst and Williams.
One: The number of NCAA National team titles won by the Jumbos in school history. The lone championship came when the men's lacrosse team defeated Salisbury College in May of 2010.
President's Marathon Challenge (PMC): Founded by former University President Lawrence Bacow as a 25-runner event in 2003, the PMC has since grown eight-fold. The Boston Athletic Association now awards Tufts 200 spots each year, offering students the unique opportunity to navigate the course from Hopkinton to Boston.
Quidditch: Inspired by the Harry Potter series, Quidditch for Muggles originated six years ago and is now a popular sport, at least on college campuses. Tufts' team, which calls itself the Tufflepuffs, placed second in the fourth-annual Quidditch World Cup this past November in New York City, losing to collegiate Quidditch inventors Middlebury in the final.
Richardson, Bill: Most Americans know him as the former Governor of New Mexico and a Democratic presidential candidate. However, before that, Richardson joined the history books as one of only 17 Jumbos pitchers in history to record 100 or more strikeouts during his collegiate career.
Sailing: The school's most decorated team, winning 20 national titles since 1976. The Jumbos look poised for success again this year, with the coed team ranked 11th in the country and the women's team at 17th.
Tuftonia's Day: Penned by Elliot W. Hayes in 1913, Tufts' fight song inspires athletes to "make it a goal in the good old fashioned way" — whatever that means.
Ultimate Frisbee: In 1975, Time Magazine began its profile on "the nation's newest intercollegiate sport" by describing a game of ultimate on Tufts' campus. The school hosted the first-ever collegiate national championship and finished 10th in the competition this past season.
Voute Courts: Recently renovated to include a blue surface, the Voute Courts, located on Professor's Row, house the men's and women's tennis teams by day and health-conscious townies by night.
Water Polo: One of many successful club sports teams on the Tufts campus, the aquatic Jumbos captured the National Div. III Club title in 2009 and followed it up by winning the North Atlantic regional for the second consecutive year in 2010.
X's and O's: Tufts' all-star coaching staff includes men's lacrosse's Mike Daly (LA '95), who played football and baseball at Tufts, women's basketball's Carla Berube, who played on UConn's undefeated 1995 squad, and baseball's John Casey (LA' 80) and 28-year coaching veteran with over 500 career wins.
Yoga: As if to compound the whole latte-sipping, left-leaning, NPR-listening stereotype, Tufts students have taken a liking to yoga, which is among the most popular physical education courses on campus.
Zimman Field: The home of Tufts' football team is named after Harold Zimman, a member of the class of 1938, who devoted much of his life to improving the Olympics.
