By Tim Clinton
Seattle's other, smaller and private NCAA Division I university has a storied sports history of its own.
Sure, Seattle University does not field a football team, but it competes in men's and women's basketball, baseball, fastpitch softball, men's and women's soccer and men's and women's swimming among other sports.
Seattle University is currently a member of the Western Athletic Conference but will officially become a full member of the West Coast Conference as of July 1 of this year to remain as a NCAA Division I school.
The school has won three national titles in its history.
The men's soccer team took the NAIA Division I title in 1997 and the NCAA Division II title in 2004.
Seattle University won the NAIA men's swimming Division I championship in 2004.
But three of the most famous names in school history came in men's basketball in the 1950s, with two of them also playing baseball and later reaching the major leagues in that sport.
The names are Elgin Baylor and O'Brien twins Eddie and Johnny.
Baylor led the Seattle University team known as the Chieftains until it was changed to Redhawks in January of 2000 all the way to the NCAA tournament final in 1958.
The future National Basketball Association Hall of Famer was named as the most outstanding player of the tournament.
Baylor scored 23 points and hauled down 22 rebounds in a stunning 73-51 rout of Kansas State in the semifinals but picked up his fourth personal foul shortly after his team led by three points at the half in the championship to limit his play the rest of the way.
The University of Kentucky went on to win the final by an 84-72 score.
The O'Briens led Seattle University to its first NCAA appearance back in 1953, after taking them to the NIT at Madison Square Garden in New York the year before.
Both O'Briens were chosen in the 1953 NBA draft in spite of their 5-foot, 9-inch height, but they opted to play baseball instead. They played together for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1953 to 1958.
Eddie O'Brien later became the Seattle University baseball coach and athletic director.
Both later also became regular fixtures at the once annual Twin Lakes Celebrity Golf Tournament to benefit the Federal Way Boys and Girls Club.
Seattle University made the NCAA men's basketball tournament 11 times between 1953 and 1969, with other future NBA players besides Baylor including Eddie Miles, Tom Workman, Rod Derline and Clint Richardson.
Richardson won an NBA crown in 1983 with the Philadelphia 76ers.
The school dropped down to the NAIA level in 1980 and stayed there 21 years before jumping back to the NCAA in 2001. It started off as Division III for a year and went Division II from 2002 to 2009 before going back to Division I.
Seattle University won the 2024 men's College Basketball Invitational.
Other men's sports offered at the school now are cross country, golf, tennis and track and field, while the rest of the women's sports are cross country, golf, rowing, tennis and track and field.