Many of you might not have heard of the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup. It is an award that honors institutions maintaining broad-based athletics programs success in many sports (including male and female sports).
The Directors’ Cup, founded by the National Association of College Directors of Athletics and USA Today, began in 1993-1994 for NCAA Division I athletics. In 1995-96, it was expanded to include Division II, III and the NAIA. Each institution is awarded points in a pre-determined number of sports for men and women. The overall champion is the institution that records the highest number of points in their division’s Directors’ Cup standings. For NCAA Division I, there are 20 sports included (ten men’s and ten women’s sports).
The ACC is currently tied with the Big 10 Conference for most schools in the top 10 of the 2015-2016 Director’s Cup standings (North Carolina is at #4, Syracuse is at #6, Virginia is at #8, and Notre Dame is at #9). The ACC also has pretty good representation in the top 50 with North Carolina State coming in at #17, Duke at #18, Virginia Tech at #22, Florida State at #28, Boston College at #42, and Clemson at #49.
I am very pleased, happy, and surprised that the Hokies have an opportunity to finish in the Top 20-25 of the standings – Virginia Tech doesn’t have many Olympic sports and this would an incredible finish (Virginia Tech’s best spring sport is still ongoing – track and field).
While it doesn’t appear that any ACC team will catch Stanford, the ACC has done very well – and member institutions should be proud of the conference’s performance in the Cup.
