In 1950, the Rice Stadium was built to serve as the training and playground of the Rice Owls football team. It was also in this stadium wherein the Americans bore witness to the inspiring speech of the late-President John F. Kennedy, who spilled the beans about the possibility of sending humans to the moon, and that they are the first to do that among the nations of the world. Years later, the speech became a reality.



The rise of the Rice Owls to national limelight was to be credited to the patient and skillful coaches of the team through the years Phillip Arbuckle (1912-17,'19-23), John Anderson (1918), John Heisman (1924-1927), Claude Rothgeb (1928), (1929-1933), (1934-1939), (1940-1966), Bo Hagan (1967-1970), Bill Peterson (1971), Al Conover (1972-1975), Homer Rice (1976-1977), Ray Alborn (1978-1983), Watson Brown (1984-1985), Jerry Berndt (1986-1988), Fred Goldsmith (1989-1993), Ken Hatfield (1994-2005), Todd Graham (2006), David Bailiff (2007-present). Without these stars, the team wouldn't have been catapulted to the stars that they are right now.

In 2003, the Rice Owls defeated the football team of Stanford, which gained them the championship title of the 2003 College World Series. The Owls stole 2 games from Stanford, which only won one game. At that time, Rice University is known as the smallest university with sheer number of students compared to the schools. However, the win made the institution's name big, because it was the first smallest university to win a national championship min 51 years.

At the 2004 MLB draft, the Rice University became the harvest field, with three of its players ? Philip Humber, Jeff Nieman, and Wade Townsend ? being in the top 8 picks of the league.

In 2004, Rice became the first school ever to have three players selected in the first eight picks of the MLB draft when Philip Humber, Jeff Niemann and Wade Townsend were selected third, fourth, and eighth, respectively. In 2007, Joe Savery was selected as the 19th overall pick.

Moreover, the football team continued its dominance in the sport by finishing an impressive third place in the 2006 and 2007 College World Series Tournaments. To date, the Rice Owls has a total of 12 consecutive championship wins tucked under its name ? nine championships in the Western Athletic Conference, and three while being a member of Conference USA. This season, the Rice Owls vow to do their best to get their 13th championship title. With impressive stats that made them the 10th highest in Conference USA for the points scored per game with a remarkable 20.1 points per game. They are currently on a three-way tie on the top spot with the Houston Cougars and the Tulsa. The west division champs of Conference USA is yet to be determined but surely, the Owls are vying for the top spot and will stop at nothing to get there.