Florida Gulf Coast University: Cost, Admission, Ranking

 Athletics in the Florida Gulf Coast University

FGCU’s athletics teams are known as the Eagles. FGCU completed the four-year transition to NCAA Division I for all athletics programs in 2011. The Eagles compete in the Division I Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN), which they joined in 2007.

FGCU intercollegiate athletics offers:

• Men’s and women’s golf
• Men’s and women’s tennis
• Men’s and women’s basketball
• Women’s softball
• Men’s baseball
• Men’s and women’s cross country
• Women’s volleyball
• Men’s and women’s soccer
• Women’s swimming and diving
• Women’s beach volleyball

FGCU is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, and a member of the ASUN Conference, as well as the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association. FGCU plays its men’s and women’s basketball games at Alico Arena and its baseball games at Swanson Stadium, with other on-campus facilities including softball and soccer fields, tennis courts and an aquatics complex for intercollegiate competition.

The average GPA of a student athlete at FGCU was 3.27 in the spring semester of 2017.

The FGCU baseball team has sent several players to professional leagues, including Major League Baseball pitchers Richard Bleier who was selected unanimously as the Atlantic Sun Conference Pitcher of the Year and First Team All Sun Conference, and all-star Chris Sale and Kutter Crawford, both of whom played for the 2021 Boston Red Sox. Pitcher Casey Coleman was the first Eagle to reach the major leagues, with the 2010 Chicago Cubs. Pitcher Justin Stiver was the first Eagle athlete drafted by a professional team in any sport, selected by the Houston Astros in the 2006 MLB draft.

On March 24, 2007, FGCU’s women’s basketball team ended its 35–1 season with a loss in the Division II National Championship to Southern Connecticut State University. One year later, in 2008, the women’s basketball team qualified for the WNIT, becoming the first team to qualify for the WNIT in its first season of Division I sports.

During the 2008 WNIT Tourney, the team became the first Atlantic Sun Conference team to win a post-season game since 1998, when Florida International University won in the women’s NCAA tourney. The women’s team has since won the Atlantic Sun Conference regular-season and/or tournament championship each year since (except for 2010) with annual postseason appearances either in the NCAA Tournament or the WNIT, in which the Eagles finished second nationally in 2016 after losing to South Dakota in the championship game.

In 2012, FGCU’s first year of full Division I postseason eligibility, the men’s team played in the Atlantic Sun Championship final, losing to Belmont. In 2013, the team won the Atlantic Sun championship, beating top-seeded Mercer in the conference tournament final earning the automatic invitation to the 2013 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. In its first-ever tournament appearance, the No. 15 seeded Eagles upset the No. 2 seeded Georgetown Hoyas in the first round of the tournament and the No. 7 seeded San Diego State Aztecs in the second round. The Eagles became the seventh No. 15 seed to advance to the round of 32 and the first to advance to the Sweet 16. The Eagles went on to win two more ASUN Conference championships in 2016 and 2017.

Student body composition as of May 2, 2022 

Race and ethnicity	Total
White	60%
Hispanic	24%
Black	7%
Other	5%
Foreign national	2%
Asian	2%
Economic diversity
Low-income	32%
Affluent	68%

On-campus housing is made up of three sections: North Lake Village, South Village and West Lake Village. North Lake Village is on an 80-acre lake and features apartment-style residence halls with waterfront recreation. West Lake Village was previously owned by American Campus Communities and formerly called College Club Apartments. Housing 501 students, it was bought by the university for $17 million, and the apartments officially became part of FGCU Housing and Residence Life in 2010.

Themed housing is available, such as Honors and Wellness communities. South Village (SoVi) is composed of suite-style residence halls with five buildings: Everglades Hall, Biscayne Hall, Palmetto Hall, Osprey Hall and Eagle Hall, housing more than 1,720 first-year students.

In the summer of 2013, South Village opened the SoVi Pool, a resort-style pool featuring a “beach-entry” and built-in pool volleyball court. FGCU enhanced the North Lake Village complex in 2017 by opening a new lakefront boardwalk and dining facility.

More than 3,200 students live in both North Lake Village and SoVi. Freshmen are not required to live on campus, but on-campus housing is usually filled to capacity every year.

Individual halls sponsor their own activities and socials, and leadership positions are available in the Resident Hall Association.

A commonly used form of transportation on campus is the Eagle Express, a shuttle that operates daily, taking students from residence halls to classes and activities around campus.

Florida Gulf Coast University has 28 fraternity and sorority chapters on campus. Greek life is governed by the Panhellenic Council, the Interfraternity Council, National PanHellenic Council and the Multicultural Greek Council. There is no separate Greek housing on campus.

The official Campus Recreation department organizes several day and overnight trips annually, including rock climbing, skydiving, white-water rafting, sea kayaking and more. There are also 27 official sports clubs on campus, many of which engage in intercollegiate competition with their peers.

There are more than 250 Registered Student Organizations at FGCU, including Student Government, which appropriates funding for many of them.

The university has operated public broadcasting stations WGCU television and WGCU-FM since 1996, when the license was transferred from the University of South Florida in Tampa. WGCU is a PBS member while WGCU-FM is an NPR member and broadcasts news, talk, and jazz. FGCU 360 Now is a website that features university news and complements the official university periodical, FGCU 360 Magazine, which was rebranded in 2016 after originally publishing as Pinnacle.

Eagle Media is the university’s official independent student media group. Originally founded in 1997 as “The Eagle” newspaper, the media group now publishes a weekly newspaper, a website, and TV/radio programming when classes are in session. In 2017, the Student Media Advisory Board recognized Eagle News, ENTV and Eagle Radio jointly as Eagle Media, FGCU’s only student-led media program.