The Albany Great Danes are the intercollegiate athletic programs of the University at Albany, SUNY. The University's intercollegiate athletics date back to the late 1890s, but its development was hampered for several decades by inadequate facilities, uncertain financial support, and the relatively small number of male students in an institution designed to develop elementary school teachers. Tennis remained a constant from 1898 onward along with men’s basketball from 1909, but attempts to field teams in football , baseball , swimming, and hockey were aborted. Expansion into men’s and women’s sports increased after World War II and then expanded greatly in the 1960s , as a direct result of the introduction of the new Uptown Campus and its expanded athletic facilities. A nickname change also occurred, the Pedagogues becoming the Great Danes — making Albany the only American college or university with that mascot. read more