Director's Cup winners announced

Colleges and Universities A-Z Middlebury College
1

<p>The Director's Cup winners were announced yesterday. For those who don't know, the cup scores a school's athletic teams and determines the top athletic programs, by division, in the country. Once again, Williams won, and once again Middlebury was in second place. Amherst completed the NESCAC sweep of the top three spots. Fourth was won by another comparable school - WashU.</p>

2

<p>Williams has won 11 years in a row?? What the heck! Good to see the nescac schools doing so well. Our school won a similar award this year for the third time. It’s only six years old and we’ve won it three times (every other year it seems). They actually have two different cups respective of the two size divisions of HS’s.</p>

<p>Congrats Midd!</p>

3

<p>You can’t possibly be surprised that Willams won. Just kidding. Having and winning women’s crew helps.</p>

4

<p>Yeah… the school that we “lose” to has wrestling and girls gymnastics, two sports that can garner a lot of individual points and two that we don’t have (and can’t imagine having). And it depends on the point system for sure and what they count for points. Still… I thnk it’s great that Nescac schools, who typically are known for putting academics first, are such great competitors in a well-rounded way. (Unlike Kentucky Basketball or Michigan football)</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>There are no NCAA gymnastics teams at Williams, and gymnastics is not a factor in the Division III Cup rankings anyway. But it’s true that Williams does have NCAA teams in wrestling and women’s rowing, which Midd and Amherst do not. </p>

<p>Those two teams added 167.5 points to Williams’ total this year. Without them, both Midd and Amherst would have outpointed Williams.</p>

<p>But in that case, then Amherst is at an even greater disadvantage, because Amherst doesn’t have an NCAA ski team. So maybe skiing shouldn’t count either. Without skiing, Amherst would have outpointed Midd, as well as Williams. </p>

<hr>

<p>In fairness, one other point to consider is that Williams usually outperforms both Midd and Amherst in several varsity NESCAC sports that are not included in NACDA Cup scoring: e.g. football, men’s squash, women’s squash, and men’s rowing. </p>

<p>NESCAC football teams are automatically ineligible for Cup points because they do not participate in the NCAA DIII playoffs. The other teams are ineligible for Cup points because their sports are not administered by NCAA. NACDA only awards points for NCAA sports; this includes tennis, but not squash; women’s rowing, but not men’s.</p>

<p>So the NACDA scoring system is pretty arbitrary in some respects. There could be many defensible alternative ways to evaluate “program-wide” athletic success. But it does seems likely that Williams, Amherst and Midd would consistently rank near the top in any reasonable assessment of Division III athletic programs.</p>

6

<p>Wow… that was seriously informative. Why don’t they participate in DIII finals for football? Their season just ends after they play everyone in their conference? Guess I should know that if my son is going to play!!</p>

<p>And yes, the rest seems rather arbitrary indeed. Doesn’t Trinity have some ridiculously successful squash team - like centuries of being undefeated or something? And wrestling… a worthy sport no doubt … but I just never understood it - especially when B movies started throwing girls in the mud to do it. :)</p>

7

<p>Despite the fact that I know NOTHING about squash, not even what it is, I can still tell you that Trinity is amazingly good at it. That probably says something about their program.</p>

8

<p>

No, technically the NESCAC season ends before they play everyone in the conference. There are 11 schools in NESCAC, but ConnColl doesn’t play football, so there are 10 football teams. That means every team would need to play 9 games to play every other team. But NESCAC has the shortest football season in the NCAA – only 8 games. So a given team will play most of the other teams in the conference (except one), and then the season ends. </p>

<p>NESCAC declares a league champion (or champions) based on the 8-game regular season. There are also informal but longstanding “Little Three” (Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan) and “CBB” (Colby, Bates, Bowdoin) championships.</p>

<p>

NESCAC has voluntarily adopted the most severe football restrictions in the NCAA. These include the shortest regular season (only 8 games), no interleague play (which obviously makes it hard to rank NESCAC teams relative to the rest of DIII), and a flat ban on post-season play. In addition, of course, NESCAC has high academic standards for football players.</p>

<p>NESCAC feels that football is an unusually demanding non-academic commitment, and that a preseason plus 8-week regular season is long enough. For comparison, other DIII teams play a preseason, a 10-week regular season, and then up to 5 more weeks in the playoffs. The two teams that reach the DIII national championship play 15 games over the season, which is almost twice the length of the NESCAC schedule.</p>

<p>The Ivy League has similar restrictions, including a shortened regular season relative to other FCS schools (10 games), limited interleague play (only with the Patriot League), and a ban on post-season play. The Ivy League declines to play in the NCAA FCS or in bowl games, just as NESCAC declines the NCAA DIII playoffs.</p>

9

<p>

Trinity men’s squash has current streaks of 11 consecutive national championships and 202 consecutive victories. Furthermore, this is not just against other LACs: they compete on the national level, against much larger universities. There are no comparable streaks anywhere in college sports; Trinity squash is much more dominating than (for example) Duke basketball, Notre Dame football, or Johns Hopkins lacrosse. Trinity women’s squash is nationally competitive too, but not to the same degree.</p>

<p>However, squash is a NESCAC sport but not an NCAA sport, so Trinity gets no credit for squash in the NACDA rankings. Trinity is also good at football and men’s crew, which are not counted either.</p>

10

<p>You just never know what you’ll learn on here. But why isn’t Midd “in” on any of these mini-championships? No Cheese Cup, Maple Syrup Trophy or Baked Bean Bowl to compete for? That just seems wrong.</p>

11

<p>

Sadly, Middlebury is an outsider when it comes to the traditional NESCAC rivalries. Perhaps it’s because historically, Midd’s biggest football rival was Norwich University, also in Vermont but on the other side of the Green Mountains. But Midd opted to join NESCAC, and is now restricted to playing NESCAC teams, which do not include Norwich. So that rivalry ended.</p>

<p>Williams might seem like a natural alternate choice, except that Williams already has a long and bitter rivalry with Amherst. Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan have been playing for the “Little Three” championship for over a century (the name was apparently coined after the “Big Three” of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton). Williams and Amherst always play each other in the final game of the season, and Wesleyan’s final game is always with in-state rival Trinity. So no room for Midd there. </p>

<p>In recent years Midd has finished up the season by playing two other NESCAC “outsiders”: Hamilton and Tufts. Middlebury and Hamilton apparently play for the “Old Rocking Chair” trophy, but I’m not sure how much genuine passion exists there. In any case, Hamilton hasn’t won since 1995.</p>

12

<p>There is the Green Chicken competition (math not athletics)</p>

<p>[Middlebury</a> students capture 31st annual ?Green Chicken? math contest](<a href=“http://www.middlebury.edu/supporting/news/2008/give_news_633619969222186951.htm]Middlebury”>http://www.middlebury.edu/supporting/news/2008/give_news_633619969222186951.htm)</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.williams.edu/go/math/sjmiller/public_html/greenchicken/pictures/GreenChickenPic2008.JPG[/url]”>http://www.williams.edu/go/math/sjmiller/public_html/greenchicken/pictures/GreenChickenPic2008.JPG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/10/13/divide_and_conquer_and_get_the_chicken/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/10/13/divide_and_conquer_and_get_the_chicken/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>What does it say about me that I rather like that Tureen? :)</p>

<p>It seems the little three is more like a little two when you look at the records since 2001. Wesleyan has not done better than 4th in the league and has had some really bad seasons in there. Williams is consistently near the top and Amherst is usually just behind or tied. Just read however that someone has stepped up to donate a turf field to Hamilton and I know my son spoke to their coach during the recruiting process. He definitely has passion. So maybe the rocking chair trophy will go somewhere. Question is, do they really have an old rocking chair they pass back and forth? Some of those can be really cool!</p>

<p>Traditions have to start somewhere… so for discussion purposes, who would Midd’s biggest football rival be currently or most recently? How about overall? I think the Williams/Amherst thing applies to almost all things so to give Williams another big rival (not including the chicken cup) is to give them too much ego/credit. :)</p>

14

<p>i dunno about big traditions, but i suspect the bowdoin/middlebury games mean something to the coaches. both graduated from middlebury and played together in the late 70’s and early 80’s (i’m speaking of football). it’s true, bowdoin has the CBB tradition but there is always something set aside for middlebury;-)</p>

15

<p>Modadunn, did you notice the comment that originally there was some indecision as to whether to award the Green Chicken to the winner or the loser of competition?</p>

16

<p>Bowdoin is actually Midd’s least frequent NESCAC opponent, despite the coach connection. Midd football dates back to 1893, yet they have only played Bowdoin 18 times. It may be that Middlebury-Bowdoin is one of the least convenient matchups between New England LACs as far as travel goes.</p>

<p>Because of NESCAC’s short (8-game) schedule, one of the 9 other NESCAC teams is dropped from Midd’s schedule every year. The dropped school is often Bowdoin. So over the last 15 seasons, Midd has only played Bowdoin 7 times.</p>

17

<p>you’re right, corbett. since son goes to bowdoin, and competes in sports, i know they always enjoy any competition with middlebury. of course hockey is the big one.</p>

18

<p>The most exciting games are almost always those between the best, top-ranked teams. That usually includes Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, and Bowdoin. So any contests between these schools are usually well attended.</p>

19

<p>I agree with your assessment of competitiveness, Arcadia. Except I would imagine Trinity is a pretty big foe when it comes to football these last few years.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes!! And is why I ask what it says about me that I rather liked the thing! :)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Match up against Bowdoin is the football opener this year.</p>

20

<p>PS to the original subject matter: [2008-09</a> Year In Review - Second In Director’s Cup](<a href=“Middlebury College - Official Athletics Website”>Middlebury College - Official Athletics Website)</p>