Florida Tech Panthers Athletics in Melbourne, Florida

The Panthers play 15 NCAA Division II varsity sports in the Sunshine State Conference: baseball, basketball, cross country, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming, track and volleyball.

The Florida Tech Panthers represent Florida Institute of Technology, the university on University Boulevard in Melbourne. On its athletics and esports page, Florida Tech describes itself as an NCAA Division II school with 15 men's and women's teams competing in the Sunshine State Conference. The athletics department's quick facts list the university as founded in 1958 with an enrollment of 16,000, and give the team colors as Crimson and Gray.

The official Panthers website organizes the varsity programs by gender. Under men's sports it lists baseball, basketball, cross country, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, swimming and indoor and outdoor track; under women's sports, basketball, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming and volleyball. Esports, ice hockey, women's rowing and the spirit squad sit in a separate club sports group on the same site.

That list has changed in recent years. A June 28, 2022 Florida Tech announcement said five varsity programs would move to club status that fall: men's rowing, women's rowing, men's and women's cross country and distance track, and men's golf. At that point the university sponsored 17 varsity sports, and the athletics director said the change would put more resources behind the core 11 conference sports. The current athletics site still lists men's rowing and men's cross country under men's sports, so the two official sources do not match on those programs.

In the Sunshine State Conference, the Panthers share a league with ten other Florida schools that the quick facts page lists: Barry, Eckerd, Embry-Riddle, Florida Southern, Lynn, Nova Southeastern, Palm Beach Atlantic, Rollins, Saint Leo and the University of Tampa.

Basketball and volleyball play in the Clemente Center, and swimming competes at the Panther Aquatic Center next to it.

Basketball and volleyball are played at the Charles and Ruth Clemente Center, which opened in 2001 and is home to the Florida Tech men's and women's basketball and volleyball teams. The 58,000-square-foot building combines a varsity gym, an intramural gym, a fitness center and the athletics offices, and the varsity gym holds up to 1,500 people for games. In 2020 the gym floor was redesigned with a rocket ship behind the FT lettering at center court, which the athletics department describes as an homage to Melbourne being on the Space Coast. The building also hosts Florida Tech graduation ceremonies each semester.

Swimming has its own building. The Panther Aquatic Center, between the Clemente Center and the Panther Dining Hall, opened in June 2011. The 32,000-square-foot Melbourne facility has a competition pool with nine 25-yard lanes, a one-meter and a three-meter diving board and depths from 5.5 to 13 feet, plus a recreation pool with three lanes. Both pools use geothermal heating and cooling, and a scoreboard at the competition pool shows swimmers their times during meets.

Behind the scenes, the Varsity Training Center, which officially opened in 2012, holds the official athletics weight room used by all 15 varsity sports on the Melbourne campus, with direct access to the varsity training field just outside.

Baseball uses Andy Seminick-Les Hall Field, softball uses Nancy Bottge Field, and soccer and lacrosse share Rick Stottler Field.

Baseball plays at Andy Seminick-Les Hall Field, opened in 2000 with seating for 500. The field honors Andy Seminick, described by Florida Tech as the first Director of Athletics and baseball coach in its history and a former Philadelphia Phillies All-Star, and Les Hall, who coached the Panthers for 19 seasons and is among the top 30 all-time winningest coaches in NCAA Division II. Softball plays at Nancy Bottge Field, opened in 2001 next to the baseball field and named for a former head coach who led the program for 11 seasons with a 316-237-2 record. The softball field, at 3110 Country Club Road in Melbourne, has lights for night games and seating for about 250.

Florida Tech records that in 2019 the softball Panthers won their first Sunshine State Conference championship title at Nancy Bottge Field, 5-0 over Eckerd, and that the same year the field hosted its first NCAA Division II South Region Two tournament, where the Panthers won the South Region Two championship.

Soccer and lacrosse share Rick Stottler Field, opened in 2004 and named for the Hall of Fame men's soccer coach whose 190-66-12 record makes him the most successful soccer coach in school history. Stottler also coached both Florida Tech national championship teams, in 1988 and 1991. The field holds up to 750 spectators and, by the athletics department's count, has hosted two NCAA Division II Men's Soccer Championships. In 2019 the Panthers beat West Florida there in the second round for the program's first NCAA tournament victory since 1993, and in November 2022 they faced Lander in the second round and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the 10th time in program history.

The Rick Stottler Field page describes a $2.8 million project to install Shaw Legion NXT 2.0 synthetic turf and says men's lacrosse would move to the field full-time for the 2024 season after playing at the VTC Playing Field. The page still calls the turf work current and expected to finish by mid-July without giving a year, so its renovation wording is older than the 2024 season it mentions.

Florida Tech men's rowing races its home regattas at Canal 54, a venue the university leases.

According to the athletics department, Canal 54, known as C-54, opened in 1988 and is where all Florida Tech home men's rowing competitions are held. Florida Tech holds the lease for the rowing venue and launch area in partnership with the Sebastian River Rowing Club, and the university handles scheduling for outside teams and clubs that want to train or race there. The athletics facilities list also includes The Boat House at the Anchorage as a rowing site.

For outside users, the athletics department posts C-54 rules and procedures, an emergency action plan and a rowing waiver, and Stillwater 25XL launches are available for rent on a case-by-case basis. Women's rowing appears on the Panthers site in the club sports group, separate from the men's rowing program that races at C-54.

No, Florida Tech eliminated football in May 2020 and the current Panthers sport list has no football team.

In a May 11, 2020 athletics release, Florida Tech announced that its football program, founded in 2011 and competing in the Gulf South Conference, would be eliminated effective immediately, alongside staff reductions, furloughs and the closing of the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts as the university responded to the economic uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. The release said the team fielded 120 players and that students on scholarship would have their scholarship awards honored for up to four years.

The current Panthers sport list on the athletics site no longer includes football, and the 15 varsity teams are the baseball, basketball, cross country, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming, track and volleyball programs listed above.

The Panthers reach Melbourne through a Space Coast vision statement, youth prospect camps and published directions to its University Blvd. campus.

Florida Tech's athletics mission, vision and values page states the vision as Lead the Conference, Unite the Space Coast, uniting the campus, alumni and the Space Coast through academic excellence, athletic success and community service. Outside the competition calendar, the university's camps page lists upcoming prospect events: softball prospect camps on November 7, 2026 and January 17, 2027, each from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. for ages 13 to 18, and a women's lacrosse prospect clinic on October 25, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. for ages 15 to 18. The same page says a credit card is required to register and camp fees are non-refundable.

The athletics site's quick facts give the department's mailing address as 150 West University Blvd., Melbourne, and its phone as (321) 674-8032. Directions on the Nancy Bottge Field page route visitors from I-95 at exit 176, Palm Bay Road, east about 2 miles, north on Babcock Street for about two miles and west onto University Blvd. into the main campus.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the Florida Tech athletics and esports page, the Panthers home page, quick facts and mission page, eight Panthers facility pages, the 2020 football release, the 2022 realignment announcement and the Florida Tech camps listing.