Macalester's athletic teams are nicknamed the Scots. Macalester is a member of the NCAA Division III Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) in all sports except football. The Scots' football team set an NCAA Division III record by losing 50 straight games from 1974 to 1980. Earlham College broke that record in 2018, losing 51 straight games. In 1977, Macalester set a Division III record by allowing 59.1 points per game. The losing streak ended in dramatic fashion: Kicker Bob Kaye put a 23-yarder through the uprights with 11 seconds remaining in a September 1980 game as the Scots beat Mount Senario College. The Scots left the MIAC after the 2001 season and competed as independents until 2014, when they joined the Midwest Conference. Under head coach Tony Jennison, Macalester won the Midwest Conference title, the Scots' first conference football title since 1947. Macalester also won nine games in 2014, the most ever in a Scots season in their 121 years of intercollegiate football. The college actually dissolved the football program in 1906, pronouncing, according to "The Mac Weekly": "Thoroughly aroused to the evils, real or imaginary, of this game, the public is clamoring for the entire abolition or reform on this 'relic of barbarism.'"