FROM GROUND FLOOR TO CHAMPIONSHIPS
The year was 1993. At a time
when the Toronto Blue Jays,
Dallas Cowboys, and Chicago
Bulls were the established
powers in professional sports,
Villa Julie was just beginning
the process of starting a
comprehensive athletic program.
In the mid-1990s, there were no state-of-the-art athletic facilities. The Villa
Julie athletic department operated solely on the small campus located in
the Greenspring Valley. The transformative additions of the Owings Mills
Gymnasium and Mustang Stadium wouldn’t happen for more than 15 years.
Since the beginning of the school’s NCAA era in 1994-1995, the teams from
Villa Julie/Stevenson have won 46 conference championships, made 43 NCAA
Tournament appearances, and won an NCAA championship in men’s lacrosse.
Who could have imagined that level of achievement 25 years ago?
ABOVE: Women’s soccer
alumni gather on the front
field at Greenspring, shared by
five teams in the early days of
Mustang athletics.
TOP RIGHT: Carol Zimmerman,
who served as Associate
Athletic Director for 26 years,
took VJC’s case to the 1994
NCAA Convention.
STEPPING UP
The first step towards the 27-sport program that the school operates today was
gaining admission to the NCAA at the Division III level. On the field, Villa Julie
wasn’t starting from scratch. The school already had several teams that played
independent schedules, despite a lack of NCAA affiliation.
“The NCAA required you to have eight sports, four men’s and four women’s,
and a men’s and women’s sport in each season,” said Brett Adams, who was
hired as the school’s first full-time Athletic Director in 1994. “Our application
got accepted, but one of the requirements was that we needed to have a full-time
person in athletics.”
Carol Zimmerman, a coach and athletic administrator at Villa Julie, delivered
the school’s presentation at the 1994 NCAA Convention in San Antonio, Texas.
“In our presentation, we stressed that we had the support of the school and
that we already had some teams in place,” recalled Zimmerman, who coached
track and field, cross country, and also served as the Associate Athletic Director
during her 26 years at the school. “We only had about five minutes to present
on the last day of the convention. We were standing in the hallway, and within
a half-hour they came out and told us.”
Villa Julie left the 1994 NCAA convention with the membership in hand.
Adams was now tasked to build an NCAA Division III athletic program. The next
step would require an even higher level of dedication, patience, and perseverance.
“When I got here, it was all new and exciting,” Adams said. “I was confident
that we could build a pretty great athletic program. But it wasn’t easy.”
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VENTURES/WINTER 2019-20
Brett Adams was instrumental in the creation of the North East
Athletic Conference (NEAC), a 12-school conference that VJC
came to dominate.