With the NCAA Track and Field Championships and the College World Series now over, the book on the 2007-2008 NCAA Athletic Season has come to a close. Naturally with that end comes the grades.
Now I am by no means a qualified “athletics” professor, or any professor for that matter. The real “athletics professor” would have to be the Athletic Director, Chris Hill, himself. However, because he’s probably closer to being the Utah athletics god, and being that he is a just and merciful god, when asked, he’d probably say, “All our teams deserve a 4.0.”
I’ve decided to take a more objective stance and do the final grades for Hill. Instead of just posting the grades on the bulkhead, 1920s style, I offer my explanation. However, finding a universal grading system was not easy. So, having each sport enrolled in the same five “courses” seemed like the most rational way to evaluate things.
Grade Criterion #1:Overall Records
Not every win and loss meant the same for each U team this year.
The Red Rocks, for instance, needed just four meet scores to compile a 19-2 record at the end of the season. For the football team, a thrashing of then No. 11 UCLA definitely didn’t mean the same as a 50-0 blowout to Wyoming-although each were equally satisfying. Side note: interestingly, every football loss (think back to Oregon State, Air Force, UNLV and BYU) seemed to hurt the same.
Some teams such as golf and track were hard to come up with records because they are basically not kept in terms of wins and losses. Although records played a large role, this curriculum more accurately stands for how successful a team was on the field.
Grade Criterion #2: Exceeding Expectations
Expectations played another role in the overall grade. A “B” grade indicated a team closely met the team’s reasonable expectations.
The Red Rocks gets an “A” in that category despite perennially high expectations, because finishing No. 2 in the country for any team is by no means a given, especially in an injury-riddled sport such as gymnastics.
The women’s basketball team blew away every single expectation when it went 16-0 in regular season conference play despite being picked by some to finish as low as sixth in the conference. That’s the epitome of exceeding expectations, and if there were an A+, women’s hoops would have received an A+++.
In the case of sports such as men’s basketball and football, the expectations are always there. Despite both improving upon last season’s records, expectations for both sports are high, even if unjustifiably so, and their respective grades reflect that high expectation.
The same goes for women’s swimming, which was previously a powerhouse in the MWC for some time. Conversely, the men’s swimming didn’t take a huge hit on that grade despite a pitiful record because expectations have been as deep as the warm-up pool in the U natatorium. Maybe the real shame is that they can earn a C+ even without winning a single meet, because frankly, that’s not outlandish anymore.
Grade Criterion #3: Overcoming Obstacles
It seems so many teams had bigger-than-normal obstacles to conquer, and so many did well facing that adversity.
The volleyball team and women’s basketball team had significant portions of their nuclei jump ship with beautiful tropic islands (read: potentially precedent-breaking seasons) ahoy!
The swim teams, the tennis teams, the softball and men’s basketball all had new head coaches to adjust to. Even the gymnastics team had to adjust to its first season with no team captain and a handful of freshmen-turned-sophomores who had to prove they’d grown up significantly in a year.
The baseball team had to deal with a brutal first-half schedule on top of having to equal California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada’s comfort on dirt, despite spending most of January through March solely on artificial grass.
Grade Criterion #4:Conference Play
Like the overall record, the conference grade deals with how a team finished within the MWC.
Teams such as swimming, golf and gymnastics that compete on more of a national level were graded on that basis. This grade does not include the successes of the baseball, volleyball and men’s basketball teams in the conference tournament or the failures of the women’s basketball and men’s tennis team on the same stage.
Grade Criterion #5: Post Season/Extra Credit
If records are the most objective grade, then this is the most subjective. These are the intangible triumphs and failures that don’t necessarily show up in each team’s record.
Both swim teams witnessed a significant portion of their respective athletes reach the actual Athletic Director’s Deans list as a result of Greg Winslow’s stress on academics. Both teams earned significant extra credit for that.
The baseball team, which saw an unprecedented run through the MWC tournament, got a high mark for a different reason.
Jim Boylen’s emergence as a promising fan-friendly leader, and the fact that the Utes got some much-needed experience in an otherwise meaningless postseason tournament was a factor in the Runnin’ Utes’ high mark.
The football team’s exciting Poinsettia Bowl win over Navy and the fact that they have one of the most exciting young defenses in the MWC, if not the country, gives them significant bonus points.
The golf and ski teams both got high marks here for seeing Dustin Pimm and Tague Thorson advance their careers professionally into the Canadian Tour and the U.S. Men’s Ski team, respectively, and were graded accordingly.
Lauren Endersen’s academic perfection helped the track team and the tennis team, which saw Elizabeth Ferris defeat women’s tennis then No. 1 Aurelija Miseviciute on Jan. 20. Both were rewarded accordingly.
Maybe grades are a stupid way to try to quantify what each team did last season. In the big picture, maybe as the NCAA commercial says, “There are 300,000 NCAA athletes, and most of us will be going pro in something other than sports.”
We’re talking about student athletes, and most of them are doing a pretty good job of juggling school and sports. They deserve a round of applause as they represent the U the best way they can. Maybe Hill would be right in awarding them all a 4.0?