Winston-Salem State has been a continuous member of the CIAA since 1945, with the exception of a three-year hiatus between 2007 and 2010 when they competed provisionally at the Division I level with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Financial difficulties, however, prevented the Rams from beginning full membership and they returned to the CIAA and Division II.[2][3]
In 1967, Winston-Salem State became the first Historically Black College to win an NCAA Basketball Championship. The Rams won the College Division Championship (now Division II) with a 31–1 record. They were led by high-scoring guard Earl Monroe, who averaged an amazing 41.5 points per game that season before being selected second overall in the 1967 NBA draft by the Baltimore Bullets (now the Washington Wizards).
Baseball
In August 2010, Winston-Salem State University reinstated their baseball program after a 37-year hiatus. Despite only being the first year of the program, the baseball team managed to win the CIAA Conference Championship and move on to the Atlantic Regional. The team again won the CIAA Conference Championship in 2012, 2013, and 2014, making that four consecutive conference championships in the first four years of the program. The team also achieved success in the 2013 season by earning the program's first ever national ranking of No. 23 in the country while also hosting the 2013 NCAA Atlantic Regional.
The current home of the Winston-Salem State football team is Bowman Gray Stadium, which is also home to the NASCARs "longest-running weekly race track", as the stadium is a dual-use complex for both sports.
