The Williams Ephs ( ) are the varsity intercollegiate athletic programs of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The school sponsors 32 varsity sports, most of which compete in the Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). The school's men's and women's ski teams and men's and women's squash teams compete in Division I. The Ephs' nickname (which rhymes with "chiefs") is a shortened form of the name of Ephraim Williams, the college's founder. The Ephs' mascot is a purple cow, and their colors are purple and gold. The school's athletic director is Lisa Melendy. Williams, along with fellow NESCAC members Amherst and Wesleyan, is part of the Little Three rivalry, one of the oldest continually contested rivalries in college athletics. It dates to 1899, when the three schools formed the Triangular League for athletic competitions. Today, the majority of the three schools' sports contest the Little Three championship, in which the school with the best record in games among the three is awarded the Little Three title for its sport. Williams's rivalry with Amherst is particularly heated, dating back to 1821, when then-Williams president Zephaniah Swift Moore abandoned Williams to found Amherst College. The football game played between the two is known as the "Biggest Little Game in America" and hosted College GameDay in 2007. Williams has consistently won the NACDA Directors' Cup, an annual award for the most successful athletic program in each NCAA division. Since 1996, the year of the award's inception, Williams has won the Division III Directors' Cup 22 out of 24 years (the exceptions being 1998 and 2012). For sixteen of the past seventeen years (2004–2011, 2013-2020), the college has held a dual #1 ranking in both athletics and academics by winning the Directors' Cup and placing first in the U.S. News & World Report liberal arts college rankings. Alumni of the athletic program include two Nobel Prize winners, 33 Olympians, 19 Rhodes Scholars, four Marshall Scholars, and 44 Fulbright Scholars. History Varsity intercollegiate sports began at the school on July 1, 1859, when Williams was defeated by Amherst 73-32 in the first-ever college baseball game. On May 3, 2009, Williams's baseball team played Amherst at Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, Massachusetts to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the 1859 game. Williams won the game, 8-5, which was televised live on ESPN 360 and on tape delay on ESPNU. Williams was one of the