three team national championships.
== History ==
=== Founding ===
Temple University was founded in 1884 by Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia and its pastor Russell Conwell, a Yale-educated lawyer, orator, and ordained Baptist minister, who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Conwell came to Pennsylvania in 1882 to lead the Grace Baptist Church. One evening in June 1884, a young aspiring minister named Charles Davies approached Conwell after a service to express his desire to prepare for the ministry, but did not have the means to attend college. Conwell offered to teach Davies, who showed up to the first class with six friends. By the third class, this number had reached forty. where he began tutoring working-class citizens at night in the basement of Conwell's Baptist Temple (hence the origin of the university's name and mascot).
Conwell's night classes quickly grew popular within the North Philadelphia area. The Grace Baptist Church created a board of trustees, which named Russell …
