Huygens Institute of Advanced Science and Technology was founded by a coalition of physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers. The idea was to create a small University in a secluded setting where colleagues, whose major focus was research (but who wanted to work with small groups of select students), could work and teach in a hospitable environment.

This coalition bought the buildings and land of a defunct small college in the coastal hills, South of San Francisco. Beginning in 1970, they attracted undergraduate men and women who excelled in math, engineering, computer science, physics, and related fields. Huygens students went to grad school at MIT, Stanford, Cal, Cal Tech, or Ivy League schools. They arrived with formidable research agendas.

Huygens added state-of-the-art labs and an observatory to existing facilities of a competition swimming pool, tennis courts, and a football field -- unused until the school’s plans for a particle accelerator were overruled. At that time, new President, Dr Durango Palacio-Earle, a theoretical physicist -- who had been an offensive lineman at Cal before time-consuming research made football practice impossible -- unveiled his plan to make Huygens a Division III football power.
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