When people think about sports at UMBC, the first thoughts that come to mind are of the men’s soccer team’s legendary final four appearance, those two times men’s basketball was not the butt of everyone’s jokes and were actually pretty aight and the prime example of athletic prowess the chess team shows off.

These three teams are well known for representing the school with pride in the athletic thunder dome, however, The Retriever has recently learned from an inside source at UMBC Athletics that the university, does in fact, have more than just these three teams, to the shock of many.

“Honestly, this was a pretty groundbreaking moment for the university,” said Conor Kennedy, the incompetent sports editor for The Retriever who can be found anywhere but athletics events. “No one in the know ever thought this day would come. I mean we have only been covering basketball and soccer for the last 50 years. Who would have thought there were other teams?”

Alas, as it turns out, other programs have existed for 50 years as well like Retriever baseball, a constant force to be reckoned with in the America East Conference. Both men’s and women’s swimming and diving are consistent championship winners, men’s lacrosse was an NCAA tournament quarterfinalist, and women’s soccer was just recently the America East champions in 2013.

“I always knew we had a soccer team that is pretty good and a basketball team that is not,” said Jordan Michael, a senior something engineering major. “Hearing that we have more teams than just them though, well, I wouldn’t really call it surprising mainly because I simply don’t care.”

Through the varsity program alone, UMBC boasts a whole 17 teams according to Wikipedia, which we all know is never wrong (editor’s note: it’s actually 15 teams, Wikipedia lied). This is only a few shy of the other University of Maryland school, the College Park Terps, who possess 20 teams. That is barely more than UMBC and they are a real school with a football team and everything (which totally justifies their superiority complex over us).

And let’s be real, some of their athletics programs don’t really count. I mean seriously Terps, golf? Gymnastics? Baseba–oh wait, we have a baseball team at UMBC, don’t we? Uh, crap, uh…Oh field hockey! If field hockey was really a sport College Park, then why would UMBC eliminate that varsity program?

There is even athletics outside of the varsity programs who compete just like the chess team, like men’s wrestling, men’s ice hockey and those dudes who use to play football outside of The Commons.

“For years students and fans have been crying for more sports teams, I mean, they were really just crying for a football team, but it’s exciting to see how they will react to the school’s reveal of these other athletic teams,” said Kennedy.

According to a poll conducted by The Retriever, two percent of the student body is excited by this announcement, three percent already knew this information and 95 percent know nothing about sports and still have no plans to attend any games for any teams. Outside of the campus, polls indicated that 99 percent of the poll-takers either did not know UMBC existed, or mistook the school for a separate campus of College Park.

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