Fairfield University has quickly become one of the nation’s most selective Catholic schools, with the new incoming class boasting an admission rate of 21 percent. Some, however, may not have been aware of this fact if not for the university’s successful basketball program.
In an interview with The Mirror before the women’s basketball team’s first-round game at the NCAA Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, President Mark Nemec emphasized how important athletics are to the university’s story.
“Athletics is a great vehicle for us to help promote our brand, tell our story and have the education that Fairfield provides be understood on a broader level,” Nemec said.
It’s the same belief Vice President for Athletics Paul Schlickmann said with sports website Mid-Major Madness earlier this month when talking about the success of the women’s program.
“We believe very deeply in our women’s basketball program as a vehicle to achieve national prominence,” Schlickmann shared. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Since becoming Fairfield’s first lay president in 2017, Nemec has overseen a period of massive transformation for the university, including a growing undergraduate population and a more selective admissions process.
Last year, the university became the fifth most selective Catholic higher education institution in the United States, behind Notre Dame, Georgetown, Boston College and Holy Cross. The accolade was marketed during the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships earlier this month.
As a strategy, successful college athletics programs can raise a school’s national recognition and boost college applications.
“We have very strong values as a university that we can lean into, but we can also be competitive with the best in the country,” Head Coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis said when asked about her success in retaining players. “And we have an administration that believes in what we’re doing and the way that we do it.”
In 2020, the Journal of Sports Economics estimated that the value of a “Cinderella” run can generate more than $7 million in additional revenue.
While Fairfield has yet to win an NCAA Tournament game, the women’s program has cemented its status as a MAAC dynasty with three consecutive championship titles. The Stags were also considered a top-25 25 team in the AP Women’s Basketball Poll in 2024 and 2026.
During their stint in the national ranking, Fairfield was the talk of the town.
Sports Illustrated highlighted the feat, the team became the NCAA.com’s team of the week and two days after the Stags were ranked, Coach Thibault-DuDonis appeared on SportsCenter for her first national TV interview.
The hype over the Stags was more than just media-driven. Every time the team has appeared in the NCAA Tournament, searches for the university have surged on Google Trends, a tool that tracks what people are searching online.
This year, searches for the university were higher than usual during Selection Sunday and last Saturday, when the Stags played against Notre Dame. Google Trends has not recorded significant searches for the university since last December, when Fairfield received media coverage over the annual SantaCon party.
For Nemec, the notability of athletics, which has won consecutive MAAC Commissioner’s Cups in 2024 and 2025 for overall excellence in athletics, is an essential part of the university’s success and identity.
“As a Division I school, it really helps with this path to national prominence,” Nemec said.
