Prospective students

Modern North American football was born at McGill, and the Redmen keep the tradition alive!

Athletics is an exciting and essential part of campus life at McGill. Well over 70 percent of our 19,000 full-time undergraduate students take advantage of our state-of-the-art sports facilities, which include tennis courts, squash courts, weight rooms, running tracks (indoor and outdoor), two outdoor playing fields with artificial turf, gymnasia, arena, fitness centre and sports medicine clinic.

The University offers an elite varsity program, as well as an extensive array of intramural sports and many fitness and recreational courses.

Championship McGill breaststroker Heather Bell captured a silver and a pair of bronze medals at the 2005 CIS university Nationals in Edmonton.

Historically, the university has been front and centre in the genesis of a number of North American sports.

In 1874, McGill played Harvard in the first game of North American football, using McGill's rules. The forward pass was first used in Canada in 1921, when McGill played host to Syracuse. McGill students were involved in writing the rules of ice hockey, played in the first indoor hockey game in 1875, and organized the first hockey team in 1877. And in 1891, McGill grad James Naismith invented the game of basketball.

McGill athletes and officials have had a presence at every Olympic Games since 1912.

McGill centre Mathieu Leclerc and his teammates celebrate the winning goal in a 2-1 victory over UQTR at the McConnell Arena.

That tradition continues to this day, as McGill fields 49 varsity men's and women's teams, more than any other Canadian university. Among the major sports offered are football, ice hockey, basketball, track & field, soccer, swimming, field hockey, rugby, volleyball, cross-country running and wrestling.

Other varsity sports include rowing, badminton, baseball, lacrosse, cycling, alpine and nordic skiing, sailing, synchro swimming, fencing, figure skating, squash, tennis, golf and ultimate disc.

McGill teams, nicknamed Redmen (men) and Martlets (women), compete in a number of different conferences, including the Quebec Student Sports Federation (QSSF), Ontario University Athletics (OUA) and Atlantic University Sport (AUS), all of which belong to Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the national governing body.

	Gravity-defying McGill athlete Andrea White is one of the top female hurdlers in Canadian university track and field.

Since 1994, the McGill Sports Centre has expanded dramatically, undergoing some $60 million in improvements and upgrades. It now ranks among the best university facilities in Canada.

From the academic side, McGill consistently produces well over 100 Academic All-Canadians per year, tops in the country. The Athletics Department has recently created a number of "athletic scholarships", known as student-athlete awards. Although these are based primarily on the incoming student's athletic ability at the varsity sports level, recipients must still meet the University's academic standards.

www.mcgill.ca/athletics