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Success can be hard to come by
GSU New

Georgia Southern is the eighth best athletic department in the nation right now.

Based on the fall of 2012. According to Capital One. In men’s sports only.

The only programs that were better than GSU in the fall of 2012 — according to the Capital One Cup’s standards -— were Alabama, Indiana, North Dakota State, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Oregon and Sam Houston State.

The winning program, after all 2012-13 NCAA championships have been played, receives a combined $400,000 in scholarship money

Georgia Southern is in eighth place because it received 30 points for finishing third in the final Football Championship Subdivision coaches poll.

Each Top-10 team in each Division I sport, based on the coaches poll or championship results, gets points in the Capital One Cup, and the points are all added together to determine the winner.

This is worth noting for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, and most obviously, it goes to show how difficult an accomplishment it is to make a deep run in the postseason, regardless of the sport, and regardless of the subdivision.

Second, it is a reminder that Sam Houston State was voted ahead of Georgia Southern in the final FCS poll, even though the Eagles were a play or two away from beating North Dakota State (in North Dakota) and Sam Houston State got absolutely manhandled by North Dakota State (on a neutral field in Texas), which seems silly.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, it is a window into perception. Capital One’s standards in its evaluation of D-I programs seems, to put it in confusing terms, fair and balanced in a completely skewed way.

Here’s an example. The No. 1 team in the final Football Bowl Subdivision Top 10 (Alabama) received 60 points. So did the No. 1 team in the FCS poll (North Dakota State).

Indiana, the men’s soccer national champion, also received 60 points.

That seems fair.

But sports and point structures are divided into two separate groups. For example, what do you get for winning the NCAA track and field championship? 60 points. What about the indoor championship? 20 points.

If your program wins national championships in golf, tennis and ice hockey? A combined 60 points. If the program claims the title in lacrosse? 60 points.

It’s true that perception dictates the "importance" of all of these sports in some ways. The more interest in a sport (or team, or program, or player) there is, the more companies like ESPN, Fox Sports Net, and newspapers like this one, will publicize it.

But, according to the Capital One Cup’s website, their acknowledgement is, "awarded annually to each of the best men's and women's Division I college athletics programs in the country." The trophy is "the embodiment of hard work, dedication, and an enduring commitment to excellence that student-athletes and teams display throughout their year-long journey."

In other words, it appears that it takes more hard work, dedication and enduring commitment to excellence to be the best basketball team than it does to be the best water polo team.

Are you kidding? Sure, basketball is a tough sport, but I pulled a muscle just thinking about playing water polo.

In the world of professional sports, athletes are compensated — both financially and in notoriety — based on how popular their sport is. The more cash the franchise rakes in, the more the players get paid. And that’s the way it should be.

It’s much the same in the world of collegiate athletics. The programs that bring in the most revenue get the most funding. The teams that bring the most positive attention to the school get the most attention. That’s also the way it should be.

But the commitment it takes to be a student athlete in any sport, and the commitment it takes to be the best, whether in skiing (20 points) or baseball (60 points), is the same.

To be fair, it’s worth mentioning that this is just a knee-jerk, surface observation, and the Board of Advisors of the Capital One Cup has spent a lot more time working toward scoring a system to reward the top program than I have in criticizing it.

But it’s also worth mentioning that a student-athlete’s hard work coming to fruition in front of 100,000 fans has no less value in the world of academia than hard work coming to fruition in front of 100.

And sometimes, that lesson gets lost by everybody.

 

Matt Yogus may be reached at (912) 489-9408.