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<li><p>Louisiana State University - Saturdays in Death Valley are amazing. People start tailgating the Friday night before. At the LSU-UF game, we had over 200,000 people on campus tailgating. When we beat UF in 2007, we were the first to make Tim Tebow cry. We were national football champions in 1958, 2003, and 2007.
As for LSU Baseball, we have a dynasty. We are six-time national champions. We won in 1991,1993,1996,1997,2000,and 2009! Our guys messed with Texas. I believe that we can beat champs again. Last year, we were ranked number one in the preseason. </p></li>
<li><p>I go to LSU. I bleed purple and gold. Geaux Tigers!</p></li>
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<p>BTW: All of our atheletic teams played in post-season games. LSU rules.</p>
<p>Purdue. A growing basketball program that has been doing well in the recent years and is currently ranked #4. Almost every Home basketball game is sold out. Purdue Football isn’t that big but depending on the opponent and how well the team is playing, the stadium can be quite full. The Purdue-Indiana game is one of the biggest games ever in both schools and proud to say that Purdue has won the Old Oaken Bucket the past two years. Intramural sports is very big also since there are a lot of Greek houses and student organizations/residence halls that play too.</p>
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<li><p>University of Tennessee at Knoxville</p></li>
<li><p>I grew up in Knoxville.</p></li>
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<p>The first thing you notice about the UT campus (and Knoxville in general) is the orange: the orange T-shirts, the orange banners, the orange bumper stickers, the orange coffee cups, the orange sports bars (not kidding—they paint all the sports bars orange), and the huge orange basketball atop the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. The next thing you notice is the gigantic football stadium, one of the biggest in America, which the University actually payed for. If you talk to the students, you will see that most of them came to UT because they wanted to play for or lend moral support to their beloved Volunteers. Indeed, UT is a football (and women’s basketball) school, for better or for worse.</p>
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<li>Wake</li>
<li><p>You can tell by the number of responses that Wake has to be one of the top schools in the country when it comes to percent students participating in intramural sports, club sports (teams have flown to the West Coast for tournaments), basketball attendance, and football attendance. It is also really cool because the school is so small that fans feel closer to the programs than schools with huge fanbases.</p></li>
<li><p>Duke</p></li>
<li><p>Duke is at the top for bball but the worst BCS schools for football by a wide margin (stadium experience over many years). They are great overall as an athletic department and compete for the Director’s Cup (ranking using all sports) year after year.</p></li>
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<p>Men’s basketball is an “up-and-coming” sport at UT. In contrast, UT established itself as a top women’s basketball school long ago. </p>
<p>Fun fact: Knoxville owes its robust lesbian community to the Lady Vols. Despite the general conservatism of Tennessee, lesbians move here from other states to lend moral support to women’s basketball. Take my word on this—I’ve been to a Lady Vols game ;)</p>
<p>That fun fact is actually pretty hot. I was also just making fun of the men’s basketball team since of the recent arrests that happened to your players.</p>
<p>The top of what, exactly? Certainly not all-time wins or national championships. Duke has a good basketball program, but there are several that are better than Duke historically (UNC and Kentucky for starters).</p>
<p>Holy Cross-very good LAC with 2800 students that has Div1 basketball, hockey, baseball, and football(1AA). HC is the only LAC with NCAA basketball title-1947, NIT champs, NCAA baseball champs.</p>
<p>I agree post #9 that Penn State would fall into this category…and so would the Ohio State University.</p>
<p>My D1 had applied to and was accepted at both (Big 10 conference) schools (she almost matriculated at OSU) and we had visited each schools’ campus about three different times. During each visit, the emphasis on and excitement about each school’s respective teams (mainly football)was quite palpable.</p>
<p>Broadest varsity sports program in the country (according to the National Collegiate Scouting Association), 20% participation in varsity sports, 65% participation in intramural sports, dozens of club teams. The sports culture is extremely participatory - you can walk on to many of the varsity teams and pretty much any of the club teams without having played the sport before.</p>
<p>Source: I’m class of 2007 there. As an undergrad I spent time on one varsity team (crew) and one club team (American Jiu-Jitsu).</p>
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<li><p>Haverford, Carleton</p></li>
<li><p>Tour guides at both schools told me that 70%+ of students played some type of organized sport (including club/intramural, obviously). Interestingly, my Haverford tour guide was part of the other 30%. Like at Wesleyan, students are more interested in participating casually and spectator spirit is not very big.</p></li>
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