New Mexico Lobos
collegiate athletic program of the University of New Mexico
The New Mexico Lobos are the athletic teams that represent the University of New Mexico, located in Albuquerque. The university participates in the NCAA Division I in the Mountain West Conference (MW) since 1999, after leaving the Western Athletic Conference. The university's athletic program fields teams in 18 varsity sports.
UNM teams have won 3 national championships. The women's cross-country won the NCAA championship in 2015 and 2017 and the Division I Skiing championship in 2004.
History
The Lobos name began in 1920. A UNM Weekly student newspaper editor, George S. Bryan, came up with the teams' name, the "Lobos", which is the Spanish word for wolf. Previously the University's teams were referred to as the "University Boys" or "Varsities".
School spirit
School colors
In the early years of the university, the school colors were black and gold. Tradition holds that in the 1890s, a faculty member suggested the school adopt colors more representative of New Mexico.
“New Mexico Lobos” enters the record as collegiate athletic program of the University of New Mexico. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mexico, Lobos and collegiate can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3257637. VIAF identifies the subject as 17150565605406251960. The Library of Congress control number is n2017054966. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1999, 2015, 2017 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “New Mexico Lobos” 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.