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Texas Tech Red Raiders

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Texas Tech Red Raiders

The Texas Tech Red Raiders and Lady Raiders are the athletic teams that represent Texas Tech University, located in Lubbock, Texas, United States. The women's basketball team uses the name Lady Raiders, while the school's other women's teams use the "Red Raiders" name.

The university's athletic program fields 17 varsity teams in 11 sports all of whom have combined to win 77 conference championships as well as 4 national championships. The Masked Rider and Raider Red serve as the mascots representing the teams, and the school colors are scarlet red and black. Texas Tech athletics teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.

From 1932 until 1956, the university belonged to the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Texas Tech was admitted to the Southwest Conference on May 12, 1956. When the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1995, Texas Tech, along with the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, and Baylor University, joined with all eight former members of the Big Eight Conference to form the Big 12 Conference.

The university's athletic director is College Football Playoff committee representative Kirby Hocutt. Bob Knight, the most notorious coach in men's Division I basketball history, coached the Red Raiders men's basketball team from 2001 to 2008. Following Bob Knight's retirement in 2008, his son Pat Knight assumed head coaching duties. The Red Raiders football team, which has been coached by Mike Leach from 2000 to 2009, is a member of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision and has appeared in the 19th-most bowl games of any team. Tommy Tuberville was named head coach in 2010 following the firing of Mike Leach and remained in the position until 2012 before resigning. He was replaced by former Texas Tech quarterback Kliff Kingsbury in 2013. In 1993, led by coach Marsha Sharp, the Lady Raiders basketball team won the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship. Following Sharp's retirement in 2006, Kristy Curry was named Lady Raiders head coach. Red Raiders baseball coach Larry Hays, who is one of only four coaches in NCAA baseball history to win 1,500 career games, retired in 2008. In 2019, Track and Field Director Wes Kittley won the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships to secure the first men’s NCAA national championship in the school’s history.

On February 24, 1925, an article published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram suggested Tech's athletic teams be called the "Dogies" explaining that "a Dogie is a calf whose mother died and is forced to look out for itself" and "If ever anything had to rustle for itself, it was West Texas and Tech College."

Behind football and men's basketball, baseball is the third oldest sport at Texas Tech. The initial team organized in 1925 and the first game, an 18–9 victory over West Texas State Teachers College, was played in 1926. In the following game, the team suffered its first ever loss, 14–9 to the team it had previously defeated. The teams' 100th game came on April 20, 1963, defeating New Mexico Highlands 10-6 in Lubbock

E. Y. Freeland was the first coach of the Red Raiders, though the team was known as the Matadors at the time. He remained in the position for three years before R. Grady Higginbotham took the role. Higginbotham coached for only two years. From 1930 to 1953, Tech did not field an intercollegiate baseball team. When the program returned in 1954, Beattie Feathers became the head coach of the Red Raiders and remained until 1960. He was followed by Berl Huffman (1961–1967), Kal Segrist (1968–1983), and Gary Ashby (1984–1986). Upon Ashby's departure, Larry Hays became the head coach of the team. On April 2, 2008, Hays became just the fourth coach in NCAA baseball history to win 1,500 career games.

Larry Hays took over the Red Raiders baseball team in 1987. Under Hays, Texas Tech endured only two losing seasons, his first and last, and enjoyed their greatest success in baseball. Hays took Tech from having a losing tradition to being a national contender. When Hays started with the Red Raiders, the team's overall record stood at 550–576. By the time he left, he was the fourth-winningest coach is college baseball history and the team's record had improved to 1,365–1,054–9. The Red Raiders reached eight straight NCAA tournaments from 1995–2002 and again in 2004, three of which were held at Dan Law Field. They also won two conference championships, in 1995 (while still in the Southwest Conference) and 1997, and two conference tournament championships, in 1996 and 1998.

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