Club Deportivo Universidad Católica (sports club)

**Club Deportivo Universidad Católica**
Founded	April 21st of 1937
Team Stadium	San Carlos de Apoquindo Santa Rosa de Las Condes
President	Jorge O'Ryan
Sport Branches	Basketball Horsemanship Soccer Hockey Swimming Rugby Ski Tennis Triathlon Volleyball

The club Club Deportivo Universidad Católica is a sporting organization from chile representing the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile that puts together 14 sport branches, being the most famous the Soccer branch.

Since its fundation, the colors that identify the team are the white and the blue. While in their club's logo you can see these same colors with red, besides representing it with a cross, showing the club's catholic character.

History

The Club fundation was in 1908. Even though the sports activities in the university began years before, the idea from Raúl Agüero in 1925 to gather sport activities from the university under the same name was the beginning of the formation of what became the Club Deportivo Universidad Católica. This way, it began to act as an organized identity and totally dependent from the university on August 30th of 1927, when the then director, Monseñor Carlos Casanueva obtained the permits to use Campos Sport de Ñuñoa for the sporting activities of the university.

It began its participation in the University Confederation of sports in (1928), participating together with the Universidad de Concepción, the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and the Universidad de Chile.

On april 19th of 1937 the university gets to join the Central Association of Soccer. Because of this, a group of students from the university, got together in a house of studies in Santiago de Chile on April 21st of 1937 to discuss the organization of the club. This would become the official date of foundation.

The soccer branch made its official debut on june 13th of 1937 in the then Segunda División of Chilean professional soccer, in a game against Universidad de Chile, the long time rival of the club, in the military stadium.

In the beginning part of the 1980s, it began the migration of some sporting branches to the Sporting complex named San Carlos de Apoquindo.

Presidents of the Club

1937-1938: Augusto Gómez Soto
1939-1946: Jimmy Rasmusen Bowden
1947-1949: Óscar Álvarez Lon
1950-1951: Enrique Casorzo Federici
1952-1953: Alejandro Duque Lagos
1953-1954: Carlos Dittborn Pinto
1954-1955: Sergio Urrejola Rozas
1955-1956: Enrique Casorzo Federici
1957-1965: Eduardo Cuevas Valdés
1966-1967: Enrique Casorzo Federici
1968-1974: Manuel Vélez Samaniego
1975-1976: Raúl Devés Jullian
1976-1977: José Martínez Guichou
1978-1982: Germán Mayo Correa
1982-1993: Alfonso Swett Saavedra
1994-1996: Jorge Claro Mimica
1996-1998: Manuel Vélez Samaniego
1999-: Jorge O´Ryan Schütz

Branches

Soccer

The branch of soccer of the Sports Club Universidad Católica is the most important one of the institution, becoming one of the most successful and popular teams in Chile. The team is considered one of the three "great ones" from chile, together wih Colo-Colo and Universidad de Chile.^[1]

Basketball

The basketball branch of the club, has been champions 5 times of the professional league in chile, Dimayor, where it competes in the called first division. The historic performance in the middle of the 1980s where they won a record 4 titles in a row, made the team "catolico" as the team with most wins in the league history. They also won the title in 2005, behind the leadership of Miguel Ureta.

Rugby

It is one of the most important teams of Rugby in chile, having won the national tournament 18 times. For the rugby sports branch, their pants are black in both the official uniform and the alternative.

Ski

The branch of ski of the sports club Universidad Católica was founded in 1942] because of the initiative of a group of students from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Anthem

Its lyrics were written by Pedro Fornazzari, Charles Bown and Alberto Buccicardi, the two last were ex players from the club and directors of the magazine revista Estadio.

Emulating the melody utilized by the supporters of the British club Manchester United, they gave birth to the Anthem of the institution, immortalizing the phrase "Por la Patria, Dios y la Universidad", which translates to "For the country, God and the University".

Sports Accommodations

The first stadium that belonged to the university was the Independence Stadium, founded on October 14th of 1945.

Years later, the municipality of Las Condes gave, for 99 years, some land located in Santa Rosa, that later on became known as the Santa Rosa de Las Condes Sport complex.

In 1971 the club lost its stadium due to the poor economic situation of the university.

In 1972 it was introduced the first project for a new stadium, that ended up in the inauguration on September 4th of 1988 as the Estadio San Carlos de Apoquindo.