Jerry Welsh, the basketball team won the NCAA Division III national championship. In 1979, 1982, and 1985, the Potsdam Bears were national runners-up for this title.
The SUNY Potsdam men's ice hockey team has competed in the NCAA since 1976. Most recently, they played in the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC), which is a Division III athletics conference. The 1995–96 men's ice hockey team won the program's only SUNYAC title in school history, under Hall of Fame coach Ed Seney.
In 2011, SUNY Potsdam athletics was placed on NCAA probation due to an inadvertent error in the awarding of international student-athlete grants. The teams affected by the NCAA probation were the men's and women's hockey, women's volleyball, men's and women's lacrosse and women's soccer and led to a two year post-season ban.
== A cappella ==
SUNY Potsdam has four a cappella groups on campus: The Potsdam Pointercounts, founded in 1993, the A Sharp Arrangement founded in 1994, the Potsdam Pitches founded in 2007 …
