James Madison Dukes
athletic teams that represent James Madison University
The James Madison Dukes are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent James Madison University (JMU), in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The name "Dukes" is derived from Samuel Page Duke, the university's second president. The Dukes play as members of the Sun Belt Conference (SBC), which sponsors sports at the NCAA Division I level. In football, JMU participates in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of Division I, formerly known as Division I-A. JMU was a charter member of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), now known as the Coastal Athletic Association. The Dukes officially left the CAA and joined the SBC in 2022, participating in Division I FBS football and other sports sponsored by the conference.
The university mascot, Duke Dog, is frequently seen at many sporting events, and the school colors are royal purple and gold. JMU has won five NCAA national championships, third-most among Virginia colleges and universities, trailing only Virginia (35) and Old Dominion (28).
JMU's women's athletics tradition is among the oldest in the nation, dating nearly back to the institution's founding in 1908. Strong intercollegiate programs for women have been in place at the university since the early 1920s, and JMU was among the first of the nation's institutions to provide well-rounded overall intercollegiate offerings for females. Men's athletics began at JMU when it admitted its first men in the late 1940s, and a comprehensive program for men began evolving in the late 1960s when the university became fully coeducational.
The public source identifies “James Madison Dukes” as athletic teams that represent James Madison University. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Madison and Dukes.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6138758. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022 and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Madison Dukes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.