Congratulations to our Philadelphia Eagles on winning the NFC and advancing to the Super Bowl for the second time in five years! Philadelphia is truly a city of winners and your Temple Owls have lived up to that this month with our men’s basketball and women’s basketball teams currently riding win streaks, including our men’s win at #1 Houston on Jan. 22.

Great news for Temple Athletics as we have brought onto our athletics staff our first full-time nutritionist, Jacqueline Cotumaccio. Join me in welcoming her to Temple and we look forward to having her work with all our coaches, student-athletes, and teams in this important area.

Special thanks to Temple alum Michael Gaines (’93) on leading our senior leadership through a two-day retreat on Jan. 24-25. Also, a huge thank you to our head golf coach Brian Quinn and his staff for hosting our group at The 1912 Club. It truly was a productive two days of work in setting the direction for the future of Temple Athletics.

I am pleased to announce that Temple is one of 80 schools partnering with Coca-Cola and Togethxr to celebrate women’s collegiate sports by promoting attendance at women’s sporting events. This is a unique way to promote student attendance at our women’s athletics contests.

Congrats to Dr. Nikki Franke and women’s lacrosse standout Belle Mastropietro on being honored by the Philadelphia Sportswriters Dinner on Monday, January 23. Nikki was the recipient of the organization’s lifetime achievement award with Belle, a returning All-American, one of the honored student-athletes.

Men’s Basketball is in the midst of a four-game winning streak and is in second place in the American Athletic Conference with an 8-2 record. On Jan. 22, the team won at #1 Houston, marking the first win over the nation’s a top ranked team since 2000. Our Owls also move to 3-0 in Quad 1 games with an overtime victory at UCF Saturday.

Women’s Basketball won both its games last week, defeating Tulane on the road and UCF at Liacouras Center. With the wins, the team is just one game out of being tied for second place in the American…

Men’s Tennis resumed play after a nine-day break. The team dropped to Yale on the road, 6-1.

Women’s Tennis opened its season at 1-1, winning at VCU before falling at home to West Virginia.

Women’s Indoor Track shined in the Dr. Sanders Invitational at Columbia University. Five Owls set new personal bests, and eight earned top-15 finishes. Allie Riches tied the program indoor record in the high jump with a mark of 3.75m. Tannekee Strachan won the triple jump with a distance of 12.70m.

Women’s Fencing will look to bounce back from a tough Philadelphia Invitational when it travels to the Northwestern Duals this weekend.

Women’s Gymnastics swept its Quad meet on Jan. 21 and is off until a Feb. 5 meet at Yale.

Five of our student-athletes showed up for President Wingard’s first “Office Hours” session on January 26. Falanika Danielson (Women's Volleyball), Eliza David (Women's Soccer), Natalie Demasi - (Women's Soccer), Brandon Van Vuuren (Men's Crew) and Peyton Reiger (field hockey) shared their experiences, and thoughts related to mental health with the President and have been invited to be campus mental health ambassadors to help with some of the recommendations from the Mental Health Task Force.

Congrats to Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director/Chief of Staff Justin Miller on completing the Sports Management Institute six-month executive program. Justin is a rising star in athletics administration, and we are fortunate to have had him on our executive senior staff,

Former Owls Hasson Reddick (2013-16), Shaun Bradley (2016-19), and the #1 seed Philadelphia Eagles are NFC Champions and are heading to Arizona for Super Bowl LVII to take on the Kansas City Chiefs.

In the dominating 31-7 victory over the #2 seed, San Francisco 49ers, Reddick made his presence known early with a strip sack forced fumble on Brock Purdy's first drive. He then went on to finish the game with three tackles, two sacks, two tackles-for-loss, and one quarterback hit.

To our football season ticket holders, first thank you for your constant support and spirit at our games. You are truly appreciated. We sent an email to you on Monday regarding our decision to move our home football sideline back to the east side of Lincoln Financial Field. We did this after soliciting your feedback and careful consideration. We do hope you understand, we truly believe it will be a much better fan experience moving forward. Click HERE to read the full letter.

Special shoutout to our Athletes of the Week since our last edition of From The Nest: Men’s Basketball – Khalif Battle (01/30) and Damian Dunn (01/23) were named Big 5 Players of the Week with both also earning OwlSports.com Athlete of the Week.

Please come out and continue to support all our Temple Athletics teams. Below is a link to our composite schedule.

Mark your calendars for Temple University is hosting the 2023 NCAA Women’s Rowing Championship on the Cooper River in Pennsauken, N.J. The dates are Friday-Sunday, May 26-28.

In closing, I look forward to seeing everyone at tomorrow’s Women’s Basketball game against Wichita State (7 pm), where we will celebrate National Girls and Women in Sport Day as well as the men’s basketball team’s rematch against #3 Houston Sunday (6 pm).

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